Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-03-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Did you remember to set your clocks back last night?

NOTE: I know there's something important going on Tuesday, but let's keep the discussion focused on BOOKS and READING...CBD will be along in a few hours with a political thread. Thanks!

PIC NOTE

Last week's pumpkin library featuring LEGO minifigs inspired me, so I looked for similar pictures and found the one above. Not bad. It looks like it depicts a writer working at his computer and he's having a "EUREKA!" moment. It's a bit hard to see, but one of the books on his desk is Dune by Frank Herbert.

MORE ON THE FEMALE DISPARITY IN THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

The YouTuber above claims that the dominance of women in the publishing industry in the U.K. and in America has become "farcical." It's true that publishing was dominated by men for a long, long time, and that did lead to the overabundance of male authors during that time. However, in the past couple decades, the pendulum has swung quite a bit in the other direction. Now, straight, white male authors will be relegated to the bottom of the pile when editors are selecting manuscripts for review.

When men dominated the industry, I suspect they looked down on female authors mostly through a combination of ignorance and arrogance, with some misogyny in there as well, as they couldn't believe that women could write as well as men (despite decades of evidence to the contrary). I don't think there was outright *hatred* of female authors though. Nowadays, there does seem to be a deliberate *malice* targeting straight white male authors to prevent them from succeeding in the traditional publishing marketplace. The result is what you might expect. More and more men will try their hand at independent publishing or alternate publishing houses, which is easy to do now thanks to platforms like Amazon, Smashwords, and Substack.

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READING LIST FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS

How many of us could plan out our reading activities for the next 30 years? I admire the dedication and determination of both this YouTuber and the man who inspired him, Gustave Doré.

I do have a "bucket list" of sorts when it comes to reading, much of which I was able to accomplish this year before I hit a milestone birthday, which was nice. I still have several hundred books in my personal library that I need to read in addition to the books I'm expecting to receive this holiday season before January. And I'm pretty sure the library in which I work (but do not work for) is planning a book sale in the next few weeks. They usually have one in November. Naturally, *when* that happens, I'll fill y'all in on my book haul...

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

With all my science fiction and fantasy reading I've been neglecting my history jones, so it's on to Love to Love You Bradys: the Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. I caught Susan Olsen on a podcast talking about it and knew I had to check it out. Apart from riffs such as "The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour", it's been justifiably relegated to the ash heap of TV history. Says Susan, "I believe this show's time has arrived! With the nostalgic love for the horror that was the 70's aesthetic, there is no more garish a Technicolor display than The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Bring it out to the light of day! We mustn't forget it happened. For we who survived, and for future generations."
I never tuned in as a kid; even then, I had standards. I was not surprised to learn that the spliff-yellowed hands of Sid and Marty Krofft were instrumental in bringing it to horrifying fruition.
"You just have to get stoned and watch it because it all makes sense when you're stoned." --- writer Bruce Vilanch
I was charmed to learn that the cast genuinely loved working with each other and that's one of the reasons they agreed to do it (and of course money).
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Cat Slave at October 27, 2024 09:03 AM (kpS4V)

Comment: From reading the Wikipedia page on this show, it sounds like it was a crazy idea that was too ahead of its time and never given a chance...Kind of like the Star Wars Holiday Special.

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I'm on my continuing Joe Abercrombie streak. I'm on The Trouble with Peace which is just as dystopian and depressing as all of the other books in the series but with some good characters.
The girlbossing is strong in this series but alas...they aren't Mary Sue characters at least. The supreme girlboss in this series spent the majority of the first book eating shit sandwiches (literally) so I'll give it a pass. And her girlbossing isn't in a physical/combat way. In fact there was a great scene where she was practicing fencing with the best knight in the country and she was sick and tired of him holding back and taking it easy on him - her father granted permission for the knight to show her what the real world is like and she was instantly regretting that decision. Her talents lie in manipulation, business sense and cold-hearted ruthlessness...using her money and sex to get what she wants.
Posted by: Defenestratus at October 27, 2024 09:26 AM (SGyXu)

Comment: It's nice to see instances where female characters may appear to be a "girlboss" in some circumstances, but also show key weaknesses in other areas. That's what makes a well-balanced character regardless of gender. Character development is important, so I am OK with female characters who are badass at the end of the story, but who go through a lot of struggle to get to that point.

As an example, Jame from P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath is a supremely dangerous young woman in hand-to-hand combat (she was trained by a 3,000-year-old grandmaster) but is laughably incompetent--at first--when she attempts to use any other weapon. It takes her months of constant practice and training before she becomes remotely proficient with any other weapon. Like the character in Joe Abercrombie's series, Jame uses her *other* skills in manipulation and cold-blooded ruthlessness to resolve situations that cannot be solved through strength of arms alone.

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For those interested in non-fiction supernatural horror, let me offer Diary of an American Exorcist by Stephen Rossetti. It's a fascinating book that isn't really scary, but does highlight the reality of spiritual warfare.
A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Kathleen Beckman also has some scary case studies, and while I enjoyed it, she does tend to repeat herself and I found myself skimming ahead a bit because yes, I get the value of prayer, etc.
What's interesting about both books is how mundane evil is. No need for head-spinning and pea soup eruptions - a lot of oppression and possession is just terrible life choices or cruelty that we write off as a personality quirk.
The books also highlight how people can be drawn into evil simply by assuming the spirit world doesn't exist, so cool goth tattoos or Santa Muerte decorations are just fashion statements.
To put it another way, you may not be interested in the spirit world, but it's very interested in you!
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 27, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

Comment: I don't know why, but I have become much, much more aware of a spiritual world around us over the past few years. It has led me on a journey back to Christ, so I can't complain. Still, it's pretty obvious to anyone who opens their spiritual eyes that a battle for our very souls is taking place all around the world. The Devil is powerful and can easily sway the weak-minded or weak-willed to his cause, especially those who actively reject a belief in spiritual matters. We will see on Tuesday if the Devil has finally "won" the soul of America, or if there is a Divine Plan to take America back to what it should be.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

Watchers by Dean Koontz

What would you do if you found a golden retriever that was as smart as a human? As I've mentioned before, Dean Koontz's favorite animal is the dog and his favorite breed is the golden retriever. This story is, at it's core, a heart-warming tale of a smart, friendly dog that helps two people find each other in love even as he is adopted by them. Being a Dean Koontz story, there is a much darker angle as the dog is not alone--he's being stalked by an evil, bloodthirsty, killing machine created in the same lab. It hates the dog with unholy fury and will do anything to kill the dog. Chasing both of them is the United States government in the form of NSA agents who are out of their depth, but who are also the only ones who know what is actually going on here.

Dean Koontz has an afterword in the book where he says that Watchers is by far his favorite book of the ones he had written until that point (2003) and that it was also among the easiest to write. He experienced "narrative flow" where the words just seems to fly onto the page.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

I'm taking a short break from reading fiction to re-read this book I picked up nearly 25 years ago (it came out in 2000). It's a short history of the number zero, which is pretty unique among all of the numbers. The ancient Greeks were terrified of it. The ancient Egyptians didn't even know it existed, as their geometrical system didn't require zero for their needs. Without zero (and it's counterpart infinity), we would not have the highly technological civilization we have today. Interesting read for the layperson with little-to-no prior mathematical knowledge required.

Saga of the Forgotten Warrior Book 1 - Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia

Book 5 of Larry Correia's Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is supposed to arrive here on Tuesday (Election Day!). So I need a bit of a refresher. I'm re-reading the first four books in the series. According to Larry, Book 5 was supposed to be the last book, but his editor convinced him to split it up into two books as it was going to be quite lengthy. I guess I'll have to wait even longer for the conclusion. *sigh*

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 10-27-2024 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 I've informed the others.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 08:59 AM (O7YUW)

2 BOING!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at November 03, 2024 08:59 AM (VFJAx)

3 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at November 03, 2024 08:59 AM (fwDg9)

4 "Quitter Strip"
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Perfessor, check you inbox.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (VFJAx)

5 Okay something's wrong, I've tried to drop a NOOD in the tech thread three times and it won't post.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (O7YUW)

6 Fine then, if others are notified onto business at hand.
Not much read last week but up to the Gallipoli campaign in Martin Gilbert's Churchill, a life

Posted by: Skip at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

7 tech THREAD

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (O7YUW)

8 Read an interesting substack this morning. How to get your favorite author's books into your local library. Also tips on how an Indie author can do the same.

https://tinyurl.com/39zppa73

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:02 AM (0eaVi)

9 First? Not possible.

Good morning, Perfessor. Good morning, Horde.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:03 AM (q3u5l)

10 I'm not checking Pants compliance. Honor system.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:03 AM (PiwSw)

11 It looks like it depicts a writer working at his computer and he's having a "EUREKA!" moment.

Better than having a urethra moment, I guess.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:04 AM (0eaVi)

12 Oh, I see what happened, my NOOD postings got dropped mid-thread because the clocks were finally changed.

People will figure it out, I hope.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 09:04 AM (O7YUW)

13 Better than having a urethra moment, I guess.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:04 AM (0eaVi)

Worse, a narrow urethra moment. Ask me how I know.

Posted by: Hank Hill at November 03, 2024 09:05 AM (PiwSw)

14 I've tried to drop a NOOD in the tech thread three times and it won't post.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (O7YUW)

Because I corrected the time in the system, and it appears an hour before in the tech thread.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at November 03, 2024 09:06 AM (d9fT1)

15 Did I set my clock back?
Kinda hard to reset a dog's tummy!

Posted by: Lizzy at November 03, 2024 09:06 AM (scDBq)

16 I don't know if I could do a 30-year reading plan.

It would probably be helpful to a point, as there's a lot of classic literature I've never read, and such a list would give me the kick I need to dig in; on the other hand, I feel that I'm "widely-read" exactly because I don't have a plan, but pick up and read something if it looks interesting.

Pros and cons, I guess.

Posted by: Dr. T at November 03, 2024 09:07 AM (lHPJf)

17 Hello bookie-wookies.

I would add that Bruce Villanch knew Redd Foxx was a guest on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour but can't remember thing about it because Redd brought a mountain of cocaine.

Redd Fox plus cocaine plus The Kroffts equals a collision course with 70's wackiness!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:07 AM (kpS4V)

18 Those pumpkin dioramas are so cute

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at November 03, 2024 09:09 AM (GhIJO)

19 I finished the first TC of "Ghosted" and dived into the second one. Still too early to tell whether I'll keep this series.

I have bought scads of books this year, and I'm quitting because Christmas is just weeks away. That decision is reinforced by some disappointments in my last eBay shipment:

1. A Nero Wolfe that I bought for the cover had the number "1965" scrawled in marker twice across the cover.

2. A second NW had the desired cover art but was the enlarged size, which won't look good with the others.

3. A Parker hardback that I haven't read looks as if it had fallen into a pool. The pages are wrinkly but readable.

The search will continue, but not until next year.

Posted by: Weak Geek at November 03, 2024 09:09 AM (p/isN)

20 Because I corrected the time in the system, and it appears an hour before in the tech thread.
Posted by: CBD

One day, perhaps in the not too distant future, we will end the barbaric practice of attempting to control time.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at November 03, 2024 09:10 AM (cTMA5)

21 Good morning! I guess I should go find pants, get coffee and lurk for reading ideas this week.

Posted by: Piper at November 03, 2024 09:10 AM (pZEOD)

22 I don't know if I could do a 30-year reading plan.

It may as well be titled "Another Big Thing to Fail At."

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:11 AM (/y8xj)

23 Good morning fellow book threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine was a combination of delight and the start of some understanding.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:11 AM (yTvNw)

24 Watcher was my favorite Dean Koontz book until Odd Thomas. It was the book that started my reading him oh so many years (decades) ago.

Posted by: huerfano at November 03, 2024 09:11 AM (DKIGo)

25 Good morning, Perfessor. Good morning, Horde.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:03 AM (q3u5l)

How's your writing coming, JSG?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:11 AM (0eaVi)

26 "Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans -- was there ever a more wretched hive of scum and villainy? Some were dedicated Nazis to their dying breath, but many were just opportunists.

You'd think I'd read enough about this rogue's gallery, but there is always more to learn.

One cannot but note the number of vegetarians, teetotalers, homeopaths, and Greens among the brown- and blackshirts.

Mark Felton - "Dr. Goebbels: Sex Pest"

https://tinyurl.com/4km628kb

When Ernst Röhm was teased by a reporter about the mannish "hostess" at the Eldorado (later immortalized as the Kit Kat Club) engaging him in flirty chit-chat, Röhm fumed "I'm not his client. I'm his commanding officer! He's one of my stormtroopers!"

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:12 AM (kpS4V)

27 I read Mark Helprin's new book, The Oceans and the Stars. Helprin is one of my favorite authors, and one of the few modern authors who can compete with the giants of literature.

TOATS is a very engaging read, which combines occasional Shakespeare-level prose, with Tom Clancy plotting, and a soupcon of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

So, do I recommend it wholeheartedly? Yes, but it's not at the level of Winter's Tale or A Soldier of the Great War. I realize that this is in part due to my stratospheric expectations for Helprin. There's certainly nothing wrong with the book, and it's better than almost all the garbage from "modern authors", but it's just not quite at the same level as his earlier work. The Clancy element is strong, to the point where the characters are a bit too perfect. There are occasional snatches of exquisite prose, but it's not the tour de force that Soldier was. The philosophical bits are very Aurelian, but perhaps that's because I just finished Meditations.

All in all, it's highly recommended, but with the caveats listed above.

Posted by: Archimedes at November 03, 2024 09:12 AM (xCA6C)

28 I read Targeted Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror by Jack Carr and James M. Scott. Carr leaves his Jack Reece novels to write a detailed history of the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. Well-researched with many personal stories, Carr tells how the Marines were given a peacekeeping mission when the opposite is their strong suit, and how they were placed under the Chouf Mountains which were controlled by enemy forces. Carr also points out that after the car bombing of the American Embassy, no steps were taken to prevent a similar attack on their base Plenty of blame to go around which resulted in the deaths of 241 servicemen and led to the beginning of the war on terror.

Posted by: Zoltan at November 03, 2024 09:12 AM (OAKaM)

29 Reading this week is the usual chaotic hodgepodge. Planned on revisiting a bunch of Westlake. So what am I into? Almost half-way through a re-read of Don Robertson's novel Mystical Union.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:13 AM (q3u5l)

30 Mrs. Exile is very excited for Larry Coreia’s next book. But if the hero doesn’t get the girl at the end, I fear for the riots in the Exile house.

Posted by: Corona exile-back_in_exile at November 03, 2024 09:14 AM (WuLzD)

31 The saddest story was of average housewife Luise Solmitz, a dedicated diarist whose writing went from solid support to total disillusionment. She was married to a decorated WWI officer who was secretly of Jewish extraction. As his background came to light, the war hero and his wife faced increasing difficulties and their circle of permitted associations became narrower and narrower.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:14 AM (kpS4V)

32 One day, perhaps in the not too distant future, we will end the barbaric practice of attempting to control time.

Read a quote years back, maybe when they changed the dates from April/October to March/November that "Only politicians would think that they can control the amount of daylight."

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:14 AM (/y8xj)

33 I just started dipping into an omnibus of 7 (count 'em!) Jules Verne novels. It's a Barnes & Noble book, which means they are out-of-copyright 19th century translations, some of dubious quality. (My USNI edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has a marvelously bitchy foreword about the failures of Verne's original English translator.)

But, that means these are probably the same texts I read as a kid, getting them from the big public library a mile from my house.

Right now I'm on _Five Weeks in a Balloon_. Haven't got to Africa yet. Verne does not rush into his stories, though he did get faster off the blocks in his later novels.

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 09:16 AM (78a2H)

34 Orange Ent,

Bits and pieces of a novel, which is administering a sound kicking to my backside; almost enough wordage, but structure and sequencing for all those pieces ain't quite there yet. A short story which almost but not quite made the cut for an anthology.

And how's by you?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:18 AM (q3u5l)

35 "Man is the only animal conceited enough to tell the sun what time it is."

-- Bill Vaughn, Kansas City Star, "Starbeams" column

Posted by: Weak Geek posts this every time change at November 03, 2024 09:18 AM (p/isN)

36 In honor of Spooky Season (and because Weak Geek mentioned it in last week's thread) I re-read the first 9 issues of "Route 666," a short-lived comic book from the early 2000's. It is ostensively a horror comic, but really it's an action/adventure story that uses the tropes and conventions of 50's horror/monster movies. Sure, the comic has creepy moments, and plenty of death and implied gore, buts its often too glib (and too willing to play a moment as a joke) to be true 'horror.'

The comic follows a college girl who has the curse/ability to see ghosts. The story kicks off when she she's a ghost get actively dragged to hell by some evil spirits. She soon finds out that the spirits have allies in the world of the living who 'deliver' fresh souls to the spirits; either by seeking out people who are about to die, or actively killing people when it can be done discretely. The allies pass as human, but either are or become some sort of monster (werewolf, vampire, etc) when doing evil. The story is a little vague on that...Anyways, the story is our main character running from the monsters, and slowly figuring out how to fight back against them.

Posted by: Castle Guy at November 03, 2024 09:19 AM (Lhaco)

37 Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:19 AM (PiwSw)

38 Good Sunday morning, horde!

I read a few things this week. Nothing overly exciting to talk about, though.

I came back to the Hangman's Daughter series, by Oliver Potzsch. It's been a couple of years since I read any of those. I read The Poisoned Pilgrim. The hangman's daughter and her family make a pilgrimage to the Andechs monastery, and encounter murder and mayhem.

I enjoy this series, set in 1600s Germany. It illustrates the clash of superstition and tradition with scientific discovery.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 09:19 AM (OX9vb)

39 They say that there is no honor among thieves. This makes transacting and moving a surreptitious cache of weapons difficult. Eric Ambler, an influential but underappreciated author we have discussed previously, illuminates this in A Passage of Arms, and makes the weapons the one constant in the story, as they pass through various hands.

At each step of the way, new characters emerge and interact, trying to feel each other out, anxious to avoid legal jeopardy or being taken advantage of. Ambler puts the reader in the minds of the players as they take their turns with the illicit shipment. From slipping the arms out of the country, to transporting them, to finding a buyer, there are complicated negotiations with less than upstanding partners that must be arranged.

This is an interesting story, where the reader feels the anxiety at each stage, as each new player must navigate their part of the transaction. And, of course, there will be an unexpected twist near the end of the story to keep the reader on their toes. This is another clever and readable tale by the author.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at November 03, 2024 09:20 AM (CLK6A)

40 good morning Perfessor, Horde

Posted by: callsign claymore at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (JcnCJ)

41 The chouf mountains are the stronghold of the druze

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (pGTZo)

42 For those interested in non-fiction supernatural horror, let me offer Diary of an American Exorcist by Stephen Rossetti.

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I plan to read The Exorcist Files by Fr. Carlos Martins which releases on Nov 16

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (GhIJO)

43 Good morning dear morons and thanks perfesser.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (RIvkX)

44 Willowed
Luca 12:11-12

Posted by: Marcus T at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (hskkO)
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Thank you for that. Nice to have a few that can write better than my rusty Italian. I learnt Italian first in life but English became my other/first language early on. When I got home from boarding school every 3 months or so, I'd drive my Mom nuts because I would speak a mixture of both languages in the same sentence. Made perfect sense to me.
More often than not I do simple Arithmetic in my head, in Italian - that's how I learnt my Times Tables. Algebra and Science I do in English, in my head.

Posted by: Ciampino - Sunday Italian Lesson 3b at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (i0xsb)

45 Fine then, if others are notified onto business at hand.
Not much read last week but up to the Gallipoli campaign in Martin Gilbert's Churchill, a life
Posted by: Skip at November 03, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)
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Not much reading this week, so I'm still navigating pre-war party politics. As noted before, I was aware of the broad movements in his life, but the detail here is interesting, particularly in seeing early relationships with people who we be important later on.

Also, this is when the "black dog" starts to surface, something that he will grapple with for decades.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (llXky)

46 I gave up on "The Fall of Hyperion" last night about half way through. It's the second book. First book ends without any resolution.

Second book seems to be completely lost jumping around between several threads. Too much stuff is left totally unexplained.

I'm having too many WTF moments that jar the reading experience for me.

I almost never stop reading a book once I'm a couple pages in.

Guy needed an editor.

Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 09:22 AM (QB+5g)

47 One day, perhaps in the not too distant future, we will end the barbaric practice of attempting to control time.

If we give up controlling time, how will we know if the future is not too distant? See, you have to think these things through.

To a politician, it's not about the ecliptic or the amount of daylight. It's just "the things we do together." All they want to control is when you get up, drive in the dark, and eat. Give them that and they'll leave the other planets, promise!

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at November 03, 2024 09:23 AM (zdLoL)

48 My Zoom book club just finished up Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash.

I remember it being one of my favorites when I first read it back in the 90s. It hasn't held up. I am not sure how it ended up on Time's 100 Best English-language novels list.

It is a fun read but flawed. Kind of like a popcorn movie.

Posted by: blaster - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat at November 03, 2024 09:23 AM (QfvaV)

49 My Zoom book club just finished up Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash.

I remember it being one of my favorites when I first read it back in the 90s. It hasn't held up. I am not sure how it ended up on Time's 100 Best English-language novels list.

It is a fun read but flawed. Kind of like a popcorn movie.
Posted by: blaster - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat at November 03, 2024 09:23 AM (QfvaV)
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It's a book that is very much dated now, but at the time it came out, it seemed cool and hip. I never cared much for the ending. Seemed to much Deus Ex Machina.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at November 03, 2024 09:25 AM (BpYfr)

50 hen Ernst Röhm was teased by a reporter about the mannish "hostess" at the Eldorado (later immortalized as the Kit Kat Club) engaging him in flirty chit-chat, Röhm fumed "I'm not his client. I'm his commanding officer! He's one of my stormtroopers!"
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:12 AM (kpS4V)
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There's an article in this month's First Things that notes that Hitler has just about worn out his rhetorical usefulness. The fact that there were Greenie Nazis, gay Nazis, etc. has rendered the label devoid of descriptive value.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:26 AM (llXky)

51 I almost never stop reading a book once I'm a couple pages in.

Guy needed an editor.
Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 09:22 AM (QB+5g)

Try giving it another shot. I agree, the ending of the first one was not an ending, but I think of the two books are really just one book split in half. The second book absolutely does have a resolution.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:26 AM (PiwSw)

52 I'm very excited to read the next Son of the Black Sword book

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (gDlxJ)

53 G'morning!

Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading? I've had this on my shelf for a while and there's an audiobook (which is how I "read" 90% of my books these days), but I'm so disgusted with Jonah's never-Trumpism, that I keep finding something else to read first. Should I read it or trash it?

Posted by: Biancaneve at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (12ypN)

54 Not much reading this week, so I'm still navigating pre-war party politics. As noted before, I was aware of the broad movements in his life, but the detail here is interesting, particularly in seeing early relationships with people who we be important later on.

Also, this is when the "black dog" starts to surface, something that he will grapple with for decades.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:21 AM (llXky)

Does Gilbert take the line that Churchill's switch to the Liberals was partly a way of getting revenge on the Tory leadership for how it treated his late father? I remember that was how Manchester's biography interpreted it, though he did also stress the tariff issue.

Posted by: Dr. T at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (lHPJf)

55 The fact that there were Greenie Nazis, gay Nazis, etc. has rendered the label devoid of descriptive value.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:26 AM (llXky)
----

Pants Nazis are still a threat to our democracy.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:28 AM (kpS4V)

56 Posted by: Archimedes at November 03, 2024 09:12 AM (xCA6C)

I agree about his novels but have you read Helprin's short stories?

Just as good!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at November 03, 2024 09:29 AM (d9fT1)

57 @27 Archimedes, thanks for that review. I'm a fan, I have to say -- but "The philosophical bits are very Aurelian" is one of the finest caveats I've been warned by.

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at November 03, 2024 09:29 AM (zdLoL)

58 Pants Nazis are still a threat to our democracy.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:28 AM (kpS4V)

*gives Eris the side-eye*

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:29 AM (PiwSw)

59 Does Gilbert take the line that Churchill's switch to the Liberals was partly a way of getting revenge on the Tory leadership for how it treated his late father? I remember that was how Manchester's biography interpreted it, though he did also stress the tariff issue.
Posted by: Dr. T at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (lHPJf)
---
Lots of paternal overtones in it, yes. He dug out his father's arguments, quoted from his speeches and was writing his biography as well.

Unlike today's formulaic betrayals, his was long and drawn out, and he backed up every movement as being consistent with "Tory Democracy." The Liberals loved it, of course, and that allowed him to move quickly up into the hierarchy. He was something of a Boy Wonder in politics, which led a lot of people both to assume he was done by the 1930s and also prematurely gloat about it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (llXky)

60 8 Read an interesting substack this morning.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:02 AM (0eaVi)

I thought I'd try subscribing to some substacks. I don't know what I was thinking. My inbox was inundated, and I never have time to read them when I can concentrate on them, so I abandoned that. It pains me, to know there is so much information out there that I will never even see.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (OX9vb)

61 Last week I read a graphic novel, "Tex: Captain Jack." It's a Cowboys-vs-Indians story, and, amazingly, the main character doesn't change sides and join the Indians! My expectations were genuinely subverted. Granted, the author wanted to take the story in that direction, he wanted to with every fiber of his being, but in this case the Indians were just too irredeemable...

Story-wise, it takes place in Oregon, where the family of a retired Texas Ranger is slaughtered in a raid. This brings our main character, Tex, to the territory, looking for retribution. Doing so gets him involved in the real-life Modoc War, and our hero gets to play a part in a fictionalized re-telling of the war.

While I enjoyed the story more than most Tex books, the art was a step down. Still pretty good (in glorious black and white), but the faces of most supporting characters were weathered to the point of caricature. The depiction of the Indians would probably be denounced as insensitive if most of the Whites didn't look equally feral...

Posted by: Castle Guy at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (Lhaco)

62 Pants Nazis are still a threat to our democracy.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:28 AM (kpS4V)
---
Soup Nazis annoy me, but I hate the Illinois Nazis.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (llXky)

63 I remember it being one of my favorites when I first read it back in the 90s. It hasn't held up. I am not sure how it ended up on Time's 100 Best English-language novels list.

I was thoroughly "meh" about it. A friend who was (RIP Mike) something of a SF aficionado commented, I think reasonably, that I read it 10 years too late. If I had read it when it was new, the ideas would have been new and not all rehashed cyber-this-that-n-whatever. He was probably right. On the other hand, I was similarly un-besmitten with Cryptonomicon which didn't rely on novelty. I just don't get the hubbub with Stephenson.

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (/y8xj)

64 I hear you people have been harboring a dangerous fugitive. Give up the squirrel or even one gets raided!

Posted by: New York at November 03, 2024 09:32 AM (oZhjI)

65 Biancaneve,

I read Liberal Fascism when it came out; it was okay, if memory serves (I no longer recall much in the way of the book's specifics) -- this was before the existence of DJT drove him crazy. It's probably still worth a skim, but these days I wouldn't put it at the top of the TBR pile.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:32 AM (q3u5l)

66
Pants Nazis are still a threat to our democracy.

So like Ann Althouse?

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:33 AM (oZhjI)

67 Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading? I've had this on my shelf for a while and there's an audiobook (which is how I "read" 90% of my books these days), but I'm so disgusted with Jonah's never-Trumpism, that I keep finding something else to read first. Should I read it or trash it?
Posted by: Biancaneve at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (12ypN)

In a word: it's fine. If you divorce the author from the facts in the book, there is a lot of useful information showing that fascism is just a form of socialism, and I've found it useful in developing my classes.

However, even at the time I read it (and this was before Goldberg became persona non grata), it struck me that he treated any form of government that didn't adhere to a modernized form of classical liberalism as illegitimate. Which fits well with his foreign policy "ideas," such as they are.

Posted by: Dr. T at November 03, 2024 09:33 AM (lHPJf)

68 Well, one advantage of planning out your next 30 years of reading is that everything on the list is already published, so you won't be bombarded by whatever 'current-year' garbage gets pumped out next. I mean, most of what I read is over 10 years old, if not 20, 30, or 40 years....

Posted by: Castle Guy at November 03, 2024 09:33 AM (Lhaco)

69 Goldberg says what he is paid to say. And he went on Hillary's payroll years ago.

And much like Steve Buchemi in Not Another Teen Movie it isn't working...

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:34 AM (oZhjI)

70 So, Perfessor, you DO know why. Instead of optional sin, the government is forcing you through mutilation called transing ( they'll call it abuse if you refuse), pushing hard to expand abortion, and refusing to enforce laws on indecent exposure, porn for kids, and even larceny.

Posted by: Enough BS at November 03, 2024 09:34 AM (2NXcZ)

71 Bits and pieces of a novel, which is administering a sound kicking to my backside; almost enough wordage, but structure and sequencing for all those pieces ain't quite there yet. A short story which almost but not quite made the cut for an anthology.

And how's by you?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:18 AM (q3u5l)

Writing off and on. We're working a project on ALH for an Epistolary. Just getting into it. Of course, I was told one of my western short stories is slated for an anthology, but there's no pub date yet. Looks like the publisher is a couple of years behind, so, who knows.

Don't forget, ALH is here for you if you need some critiquing or editing help and encouragement.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:34 AM (0eaVi)

72 Per squirrel

Watch out for NYC
Theyll kill you

Posted by: rhennigantx at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (gbOdA)

73 I've read only one Eric Ambler novel. I cannot remember the title but it was set in WW2 in the Far East, I remember Japanese soldiers were part of the story. I read the paperback as a teen in Uganda.

Posted by: Ciampino - Books are wonderful at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (i0xsb)

74 Well, one advantage of planning out your next 30 years of reading is that everything on the list is already published, so you won't be bombarded by whatever 'current-year' garbage gets pumped out next. I mean, most of what I read is over 10 years old, if not 20, 30, or 40 years....

Every time I check out the "new releases" section in library I am amazed at how what isn't leftist dreck is just a shallow rehashing of older better works.

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (oZhjI)

75 In the post, Perfessor wrote "I don't know why, but I have become much, much more aware of a spiritual world around us over the past few years. It has led me on a journey back to Christ"

Very much the same here. This week I started the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" and "The Latin Mass Explained: Everything Needed to Understand and Appreciate the Traditional Latin Mass". I'm finally (after over fifty years) getting some understanding of what was only rote recitation in my youth. It is reinforcing the my perception that evil is growing in the world and there is a path to a better life through Christ. It is going to be a long journey but these books are a start.

Thanks to the commenters who suggested the Catechism (TonyPete?) and various Catholic authors like Chesterton, Waugh and others.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:36 AM (yTvNw)

76 "The Willows and Beyond" by William Horwood, a fond farewell to the series, is a beautiful meditation on friendship, aging, and accepting change. I got misty-eyed reading It.

I have one more, a Christmas Willows story, and then I must bid goodbye to Mole, Ratty, Badger, Toad, and Otter.

Ugh, I just read that there are other imaginings swapping class and gender.,,,

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:36 AM (kpS4V)

77 I've been fighting a ghastly cold/cough, while trying to finish up the YA emigrant trail adventure (thanks, volunteer beta readers!) and baby-sitting my toddler grandson, so not much reading done this week. Last night I did feel better, and whipped through all of B.J. Oliphant's last mystery - Here's to the Newly Dead. I honestly didn't know until I looked it up that the author was a pseudonym for Sheri Tepper, the science-fiction and annoying feminist. I quite enjoyed the mystery series - she kept the annoying feminism out of those books. I also realized that I had all seven of the series on my shelf, and can't remember reading the first two...

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (Ew3fm)

78 Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year?
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:19 AM (PiwSw)

No, but I'm doing other things. I heard it was on its last legs because of shenanigans by the people who want to ruin everything.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (0eaVi)

79 I'm not new here and I ignored this issue on the theory it would come clear to me someday, but it hasn't and I have to ask. What's a NOOD? Almost no reading this week, most of it was in an issue of Saturday Review from 8/24/1975 which I have saved for 50 years because it was a collection of predictions of what the world would be like in 50 years (i.e. now). They were all written by experts in their fields, Andrei Sakharov, Kurt Waldheim, Theodore Hesburgh, Werner Von Braun, Neil Armstrong and the like. Everybody so far has been pretty optimistic with the least rosy predictions being that not much will change. I've only read the first 3 or 4 so that evaluation may have to change. I remember the geographer predicting that Canada would break up with Quebec splitting off and the prairie provinces becoming part of the US. I don't remember what his other predictions were for boundary changes and I haven't gotten that far yet to reacquaint myself with his version of the world to come.

Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (+ViXu)

80 Every time I check out the "new releases" section in library I am amazed at how what isn't leftist dreck is just a shallow rehashing of older better works.
Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (oZhjI)

I'm still trying to find a copy of "Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian Soul."

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (PiwSw)

81 Unlike today's formulaic betrayals, his was long and drawn out, and he backed up every movement as being consistent with "Tory Democracy." The Liberals loved it, of course, and that allowed him to move quickly up into the hierarchy. He was something of a Boy Wonder in politics, which led a lot of people both to assume he was done by the 1930s and also prematurely gloat about it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (llXky)

I remember reading that Churchill once expressed a belief he would die at the same age as his father (40-something?), and therefore he needed to make his mark on the world as soon as possible.

Of course, he was wrong about that, but he did accurately predict he would die on the same day as his father.

Posted by: Dr. T at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (lHPJf)

82 OrangeEnt & ALH --

Thank ya kindly. Haven't forgotten the group -- I'm just slow (like, glacier-paced).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:38 AM (q3u5l)

83 Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading?

Find a Cliff's Notes version. The best thing in it IMO is his clear definition (with historical evidence) of Fascism as national socialism vs Communism as international socialism. That we all let the left get away with using the word incorrectly to tar anti-socialists is part of why we're having to fight the kind of crap we're seeing right now from Harris and the MSM (BIRM).

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:38 AM (/y8xj)

84 I hate to say it, but that pumpkin scene looks like something from Robot Chicken

Posted by: Kindltot at November 03, 2024 09:39 AM (D7oie)

85 Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading? I've had this on my shelf for a while and there's an audiobook (which is how I "read" 90% of my books these days), but I'm so disgusted with Jonah's never-Trumpism, that I keep finding something else to read first. Should I read it or trash it?
Posted by: Biancaneve at November 03, 2024 09:27 AM (12ypN)
---
I have not read it, and that was in part because the nucleus of it formed in a series of articles which formed the thesis of the book. I'm told it presents a solid argument, pissed off all the right people, and was ghost-written by his mother.

The latter claim is bolstered by the fact that he subsequently seemed unaware of how he was contradicting himself when he turned on Trump voters. People would quote page numbers to him and he never could explain the contradiction. Most people (Churchill is a great example), can walk people through the process of reversing themselves. Goldberg cannot, because he never believed in his positions or properly understood them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:40 AM (llXky)

86 I agree about his novels but have you read Helprin's short stories?

Just as good!

I haven't, but thanks for the tip (*considers where I am, leaves it in anyway*). I'll look them up.

@27 Archimedes, thanks for that review. I'm a fan, I have to say -- but "The philosophical bits are very Aurelian" is one of the finest caveats I've been warned by.

It's actually not what I meant to say. Aurelian was another emperor, but I used it for shorthand for Marcus Aurelius. D'Oh!

Just as good!

Posted by: Archimedes at November 03, 2024 09:40 AM (xCA6C)

87 One of the more amusing anecdotes about early socialism that I think I first ran across in Liberal Fascism is that Cole Porter's "You're the Top" had a line about being as great as Mussolini. Because as the world's second best know socialist at the time, and one with a much better media arm, he was popular among the western left ...

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:40 AM (oZhjI)

88 AH Lloyd,
Most of the black dog kerfuffle came from Lord Moran's book and parts of Churchill's writings were used to sex it up.

Little evidence from contemporaries that Churchill had major depressive issues behind the normal tendency to be a bit down when one experiences reversals in life.

Lord Moran was trying to sell a book in a crowded world of Churchill related publications and had every reason to magnify minor episodes. Most Churchill insiders viewed Moran's account as elevating Moran at the cost of Churchill and truth

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 09:41 AM (ctrM5)

89 Biancaneve: I read it when it was new and trendy and would recommend it.

Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:41 AM (+ViXu)

90 @14/CBD: Yup, I figured out what happened, eventually (see #12) - Thanks for fixing the system clock!

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 09:42 AM (O7YUW)

91 Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading? I've had this on my shelf for a while and there's an audiobook (which is how I "read" 90% of my books these days), but I'm so disgusted with Jonah's never-Trumpism, that I keep finding something else to read first. Should I read it or trash it?

I agree with the majority here. It's worth reading, but it is difficult to take it seriously when you know what he became. Still, he made some good arguments.

Posted by: Archimedes at November 03, 2024 09:42 AM (xCA6C)

92 who knew--NOOD means there's a new thread posted

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at November 03, 2024 09:43 AM (FEVMW)

93 Goldberg then: Here is a details breakdown of the early socialist period showing the relations between democratic socialists, national socialists, and international socialists. With footnotes!

Goldberg now: I bet Donald Trump can't even make a compelling argument for whether a hotdog is a sandwich or not. How can you people vote for him!?!

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:44 AM (oZhjI)

94 I agree. Read "Liberal Fascism", then put it in a free library hutch.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:44 AM (kpS4V)

95 I thought I'd try subscribing to some substacks. I don't know what I was thinking. My inbox was inundated, and I never have time to read them when I can concentrate on them, so I abandoned that. It pains me, to know there is so much information out there that I will never even see.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (OX9vb)

I feel that way about my writing.... Anyway, I find this stuff from The Other McCain. Wombat, who posts here on occasion, posts links to a lot of different sources. I read the ones that are of interest to me. That way you don't get swamped.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:44 AM (0eaVi)

96 Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:37 AM (+ViXu)
====

I recommend Future Shock or Megatrends

Posted by: San Franpsycho at November 03, 2024 09:44 AM (RIvkX)

97 What's a NOOD?

Just a neologism for "new thread."

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:44 AM (/y8xj)

98 A.H.Lloyd: "Soup Nazis annoy me, but I hate the Illinois Nazis." Agreed, and as far as Illinois Nazis go, it's har to tell if the worst part is Illinois or Nazi.

Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:45 AM (+ViXu)

99 Though new art threads with nudes do get confusing sometimes...

Nood nood!

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:45 AM (oZhjI)

100 @79 --

NOOD is Horde-speak for signaling that a new thread has been posted.

It's a phonetical spelling of "nude."

"New thread" became "nude" because, well, Horde.

Posted by: Weak Geek at November 03, 2024 09:45 AM (p/isN)

101 Currently reclining and reading the third entry in Cat Rambo's Disco Space Opera, "Rumor Has It" (which follows "You Sexy Thing" and "Devil's Gun").

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 09:45 AM (kpS4V)

102 Nood nood > Nood > Nood > stale thread

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:46 AM (oZhjI)

103 89 Biancaneve: I read it when it was new and trendy and would recommend it.

Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:41 AM (+ViXu)
----
In Italian?
That's Snow White as in the fable.

Posted by: Ciampino - never a time waster at November 03, 2024 09:46 AM (i0xsb)

104 And here I thought that because it announced a new thread that it was probably an acronym standing for something like the Next Officer's On Deck

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:47 AM (q3u5l)

105 Biancaneuve,
Read Walter Dean Burnham's Death of the West instead. Goldberg's book cribbed from it. Burnham was a former NR editor when that mag has actual intellectual content. Burnham was a professor of history and among other things write about the coming managerial class dominance we see today and realignment theory. Still worth reading unlike sad sack Goldberg.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 09:47 AM (ctrM5)

106 Every time I check out the "new releases" section in library I am amazed at how what isn't leftist dreck is just a shallow rehashing of older better works.
Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (oZhjI)

There's only seven stories, you know.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 09:48 AM (0eaVi)

107 This week I started the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" and "The Latin Mass Explained: Everything Needed to Understand and Appreciate the Traditional Latin Mass".
Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:36 AM (yTvNw)

Who is the author of Catechism of the Catholic Church? After you mentioned it last week, I thought I'd look for a copy myself, but there are a number of books with that title. I don't know which one to choose.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 09:49 AM (OX9vb)

108 In the post, Perfessor wrote "I don't know why, but I have become much, much more aware of a spiritual world around us over the past few years. It has led me on a journey back to Christ"

ious Catholic authors like Chesterton, Waugh and others.
Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:36 AM (yTvNw)
---
The spirit world has become much more active and the Enemy has dropped the mask. The parallels to LotR are uncanny - the West is assumed to be fatally weak and the armies are on the march. Orodruin is blazing brightly.

It all happened at once, and the giveaway was how quick all the established "science" stuff gave way to raw assertions of power, consequences be damned.

When my medical waiver for the vaxx was rejected by the Air Force, I knew the game was on. My group commander called me personally, and was audibly distressed. Academy grad, fighter pilot, and he couldn't figure it out. Mine was the first the base sent up because the doctors in our medical squadron said it was perfect. Textbook. Four different doctors laid out how not only would the vaxx harm me, it might instantly kill me. DoD said: take it our get out.

That's demonic.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (llXky)

109 One of the serious advantages of a rich reading life is it provides a shield, when needed, against the constant barrage of negative and ephemeral matters that can lead to despair or perpetual rage. (The MFM and all the political stuff right now is a prime example.) It can be as silly as the "MASH Goes To ..." books, as profound as Aurelius' "Meditations" or Cornwell and O'Brian historical fiction series. Not to mention the powerful poetry of the last thousand years.

I used the word 'shield' on purpose. It is protection but you are still aware of the world, not oblivious.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (yTvNw)

110 Just to be clear...

No one has posted an actual "NOOD" yet because no new threads have been posted.

We're just discussing the meaning and origin of the word...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (BpYfr)

111 And here I thought that because it announced a new thread that it was probably an acronym standing for something like the Next Officer's On Deck

I guess that works too but is probably too complicated for some of us. Layers upon layers.

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (/y8xj)

112 And here I thought that because it announced a new thread that it was probably an acronym standing for something like the Next Officer's On Deck
Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 09:47 AM (q3u5l)
---
Well, this is a Smart Military Blog!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:51 AM (llXky)

113 Four different doctors laid out how not only would the vaxx harm me, it might instantly kill me. DoD said: take it our get out.

That's demonic.

In my hopes Trump not only removes every single flag officer in the military but also puts them in front of a court martial for the clot shot.

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:51 AM (oZhjI)

114 Just checking in. There was a lot of concern for the Squirrel family after the news from NY last night....

Also, just read Dean Koontz's Jane Hawk Series, about cruel elites planning to take over the world via nanotechnology control of people. Very enjoyable escapism.

Posted by: Iris at November 03, 2024 09:51 AM (bOJ2I)

115 A.H.Lloyd: "Soup Nazis annoy me, but I hate the Illinois Nazis." Agreed, and as far as Illinois Nazis go, it's har to tell if the worst part is Illinois or Nazi.
Posted by: who knew at November 03, 2024 09:45 AM (+ViXu)
---
Embrace the healing power of "and."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:52 AM (llXky)

116 On phone and hate fat finger mistakes. Plus memory. Book is Suicide of the West first published in 1964 and revised in 1975.

Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 09:52 AM (ctrM5)

117 I was thoroughly "meh" about it. A friend who was (RIP Mike) something of a SF aficionado commented, I think reasonably, that I read it 10 years too late. If I had read it when it was new, the ideas would have been new and not all rehashed cyber-this-that-n-whatever. He was probably right. On the other hand, I was similarly un-besmitten with Cryptonomicon which didn't rely on novelty. I just don't get the hubbub with Stephenson.
Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 09:31 AM (/y8xj)

Yes - it is deeply rooted in 1992 the year it was published.

I read Cryptonomicon and liked it but I think of it like I do Atlas Shrugged - it could have been twice as good at half the length.

There is something about Stephenson that I want to like but I just don't. He has a new series he is starting and the first book is 300 pages - makes me want to give him another chance.

Posted by: blaster - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat at November 03, 2024 09:52 AM (QfvaV)

118 I would love to see all the O-7's and above relieved of duty. This madness must stop.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, diseased garbage human at November 03, 2024 09:52 AM (dR6yv)

119 I read a story out of Elmira, NY on the ONT last night that's sticking in my craw. I'm familiar with the Southern Tier towns there. It's actually a pretty nice part of the world, on balance. But it has crime problems. Specifically, drugs and wild Onandaga indians (some overlap, but not a huge amount).

The Elmira police have bigger concerns than a lovable but eccentric YouTuber and his rodent pals.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 09:53 AM (7oYYI)

120 There must be a multi-syllabic German word to describe people like Goldberg and Kristol who manage to shed a long-held and thoroughly-explicated belief system at the seeming drop of a hat.

If there isn't I'll nominate
KarlJohnsonGrundsatzentsorgungssyndrom

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at November 03, 2024 09:53 AM (hY4dx)

121 We're just discussing the meaning and origin of the word...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at November 03, 2024 09:50 AM (BpYfr)

Fake NOOD gets a night in the box.

It's in the Style Guide.

Posted by: blaster - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat at November 03, 2024 09:54 AM (QfvaV)

122 Sorry I should have mentioned squirrel murder made me post this on our esteemed Perfesser's thread.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 09:54 AM (7oYYI)

123 Morning, book folken,

I am currently deep into a collection of Agatha Christie novels from the Forties. The first is called The Patriotic Murders and features Hercule Poirot. As it opens he is doing something I don't think I've ever read of another detective doing: going to the dentist. After he leaves, his dentist is shot -- murder or suicide? -- and HP's investigation heads into deep waters with possible Communist and British Secret Service involvement. Christie often brought pre-Fleming spy stuff into her tales.

This one is apparently copyrighted 1940, but there is no mention of WWII; characters, we are told, have traveled to Germany as well as Russia in recent days. AC may have written this in '38 or early '39, and then by the time it appeared, the war was on.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 09:54 AM (omVj0)

124 so, i finished the United Fleet series. meh. good story, but unrealistic people dynamics. as in, hundreds of people and no conflicts. and a tenuous grasp on economics, which made me mad.

Posted by: yara at November 03, 2024 09:56 AM (5wYGj)

125 Guten Morgen Horde!

More _American Intergovernmental Relations_, _Crossing Boundaries for Intergovernmental Management_, _Exploring Federalism_, _Classics of Public Administration_, and Federalist 44, 45, and 46 for me.

I'm going back to the paper. "See" y'all next week.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at November 03, 2024 09:56 AM (NezMn)

126 Little evidence from contemporaries that Churchill had major depressive issues behind the normal tendency to be a bit down when one experiences reversals in life.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 09:41 AM (ctrM5)
---
I wouldn't expect contemporaries to know about it. From what I've read (and am reading) he kept it very private because it would prove fatal to his public image of an endlessly optimistic pugilist.

Mem were far more reserved about their emotions in his time. It's only recently that it became socially acceptable for them to act (and now dress) like women.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 09:56 AM (llXky)

127 107 ... Dash My Lace Wigs,

The Catechism I got is "Catechism of the Catholic Church, Revised second edition by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. It is a paperback with the blue cover, published in 2023.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 09:57 AM (yTvNw)

128 Fwiw, Memory is getting foggy, conflated two authors. James Burnham wrote Suicide of the West and the Managerial Revolution. Walter Dean Burnham wrote about realignment theory as UT professor of history.

Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 09:58 AM (ctrM5)

129 @116 whig, Suicide of the West was James Burnham, not Walter Dean. James Burnham also wrote The Managerial Revolution.

Posted by: Nazdar at November 03, 2024 09:59 AM (9XWKq)

130 Wehraboos and tankies both like to dump on Churchill, dismissing him as an old drunk. But they don't seem to see the logical corollary of that: their idols were defeated or thwarted by . . . an old drunk. Not very idol-like.

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 09:59 AM (78a2H)

131 Which you corrected while I was typing. Apologies.

Posted by: Nazdar at November 03, 2024 09:59 AM (9XWKq)

132 There must be a multi-syllabic German word to describe people like Goldberg and Kristol who manage to shed a long-held and thoroughly-explicated belief system at the seeming drop of a hat.

If there isn't I'll nominate
KarlJohnsonGrundsatzentsorgungssyndrom

irgendetwas fureinpfennig wanndubistein Mittelmäßigkeit
(it wouldn't let me do it as one word)

Posted by: Archimedes at November 03, 2024 10:00 AM (xCA6C)

133 The premise is incorrect. They did not shed anything. They were leftists all along.
Posted by: High Lo at November 03, 2024 09:58 AM (MU5OA)

And yet they were leading lights of the Right. So there is something there that needs to be described.

Posted by: blaster - Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat at November 03, 2024 10:01 AM (QfvaV)

134 For those who want to see another facet of Churchill, he wrote a delightful essay entitled "Painting as a Pastime."

https://is.gd/HQSoiM

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at November 03, 2024 10:01 AM (PiwSw)

135 @123 --

One of the Saint books I bought this year was "Prelude to War," copyright 1939.

This means that Charteris wrote this when matters were still mostly peaceful.

How quickly the situation erupted.

Posted by: Weak Geek at November 03, 2024 10:02 AM (p/isN)

136
[Men] were far more reserved about their emotions in his time.
----
Yes. If you were a player on the particular stage Churchill was, depression is a given. If you weren't prone to murderous blackout rages, you were doing well, I think.

But it was better time, when people led their lives of desperation quietly, instead of emotionally exsanguinating all over anyone who'd listen, or even all over perfect strangers, using digital technology as a globe-spanning therapist's couch.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:02 AM (7oYYI)

137 Does anyone know: is the feminization of publishing as bad overseas as it is in the US? Are Spanish-language publishing houses in Spain and Argentina all run by 28 year old women, too?

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 10:03 AM (78a2H)

138 AH Lloyd, family members also thought Moran's book and thesis was rubbish and that is pretty much agreed upon by contemporary historians.

Moran also placed himself into important political moments in his book that were distortions or even false. Read Moran's work and then the reviews of it by people who knew Churchill better than Moran did.

Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 10:03 AM (ctrM5)

139 There must be a multi-syllabic German word to describe people like Goldberg and Kristol who manage to shed a long-held and thoroughly-explicated belief system at the seeming drop of a hat.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at November 03, 2024 09:53 AM (hY4dx)
---
The children of the neocons basically inherited their views without understanding what they meant or how their parents arrived there. At that time, the market for conservative commentary was pretty bleak, and they moved of the ranks rapidly despite having far less talent than the previous generation.

They were also completely unoriginal. Everything they do is derivative of other, better writing. Anyone who knew the politics of the 1930s could have written Goldberg's book, but he had the good fortune of a well-connected mother (who was a talented ghostwriter).

Though it has moved a tiny fraction of Goldberg's sales, Long Live Death at least breaks new ground. To my knowledge (and I did a LOT of research), no one has ever even tried to articulate Franco's strategic thought (not in English, anyway). Nor had anyone gone through and put all the organizational and doctrinal details down in a single compact volume. (cont)

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:04 AM (llXky)

140 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 09:54 AM (omVj0)

=====

I was doing Agatha Christie books in order of publication, but only got to The Seven Dials Mystery before getting sidetracked by a new book in a zombie series I really like. It's been a long time since he released a new one so I'm rereading all the books in the series before I start on the new one. The series is called Surviving the Dead by James N. Cook.

Posted by: Jordan61 at November 03, 2024 10:05 AM (xOnCy)

141 Every time I check out the "new releases" section in library I am amazed at how what isn't leftist dreck is just a shallow rehashing of older better works.
Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 09:35 AM (oZhjI)

There's only seven stories, you know.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024

***
There are only seven notes (do, re, mi, etc.) in the Western music scale, and yet look at the enormous variety of music that has appeared in the last few centuries alone. The seven stories can be mixed, combined, isolated, given new variations or pacing or cloaking. And there's a fantastically huge inventory of human character to draw on, too.

These newer writers can do better than they are doing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 10:05 AM (omVj0)

142 National Review, Weekly Standard, and I think Commentary too, all seemed to go batdreck crazy as soon as Trump was nominated -- can't recall them being anywhere near that Looney toons before then.

Kept reading them for a while after, though, because they all ran essays by Joseph Epstein. But finally gave 'em up and decided to wait for the Epstein pieces to be reprinted in his books.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 10:06 AM (q3u5l)

143 >120 Cicero

Okay, one post before I go.

How about "Durch Gretchenfrage zu einer Verschlimmbesserung gezwungen."

[Through Gretchen's Question [the pivotal question that matters] forced to move to [ultimately] disimprove something by trying too hard to improve it.]

Or something close to that.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at November 03, 2024 10:06 AM (NezMn)

144 There must be a multi-syllabic German word to describe people like Goldberg and Kristol who manage to shed a long-held and thoroughly-explicated belief system at the seeming drop of a hat

Posted by: Cicero

There is an English word: neocon.

Remember that the phenomenon of leftists joining the right for the purpose of making the US the sole superpower is five decades old. They were never in favor of ending socialism, just the Russians.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at November 03, 2024 10:07 AM (VqWjn)

145 Reread some more Chris Anvil tales of the Interstellar Patrol and his Colonization of Humanity stories. Stout stuff.

Currently rereading The Hobbit after many tears on not reading it. So good. I forgot how good it was.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at November 03, 2024 10:07 AM (u82oZ)

146 but he had the good fortune of a well-connected mother (who was a talented ghostwriter).

---------

I've long asserted that Lucianne (PBUH) had one of her literary friends ghostwrite for her dishwater dull whelp. I never considered that she did it herself, but I suppose it's possible.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:07 AM (7oYYI)

147 Nazdar, beat ya to correcting me. Pulled the book from the shelf and realized my error. Same as have the Managerial Revolution in the shelf in another room.

Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 10:08 AM (ctrM5)

148 By the way, if you crave more tactical detail, check out E.R. Hooten's Spain in Arms, which came out just before I published (hat tip to Prof. Stanley G. Payne for giving me a head's up). A couple of reviewers criticized my book for not giving detailed account of the battles, but that was because Hooten already did it.

My point is that if you're going to do something in nonfiction, add some value to it. Goldberg's business model is to assume that there's a market of people less well read than he is, and he's obviously correct, though I think he's given the game away.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:08 AM (llXky)

149 I lift my coffee cup in membrance of Peanut, murdered by the state. May he be avenged.

Posted by: Eromero at November 03, 2024 10:08 AM (DXbAa)

150 >There must be a multi-syllabic German word to describe people like Goldberg and Kristol who manage to shed a long-held and thoroughly-explicated belief system at the seeming drop of a hat.

They spent twenty years telling us, correctly, that Hillary was a crook. And then they went and voted for her.

TDS is a furnace in which all the deep knowledge and all the reputation and all the restrained character burns.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at November 03, 2024 10:09 AM (lhenN)

151 but he had the good fortune of a well-connected mother (who was a talented ghostwriter).

Lucianne was the real deal back in the day - she created one of the two big conservative forums of the day. Her welp certainly was an embarrassment.

Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 10:10 AM (oZhjI)

152 I've long asserted that Lucianne (PBUH) had one of her literary friends ghostwrite for her dishwater dull whelp. I never considered that she did it herself, but I suppose it's possible.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:07 AM (7oYYI)
---
Kind of a distinction without a difference. I think much of his nastiness is his insecurity over being a fake, and having far more accomplished, intelligent and knowledgeable people kick his ass. He picked a fight with Roger Kimball over Trump in 2016 and Kimball schooled him *in ancient Greek*

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:10 AM (llXky)

153 Just wanted to recommend everyone check out the Hillsdale College online bookstore. On a phone and can’t provide a link but a quick google search will get you there. They offer reprints of all the now banned/ rewritten children’s books in their original unaltered form. Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, the Grimm fairy tales, etc. Plus the cerebral workout type books such as Faust, Dante’s etc. The Federalist papers and all the books that accompany their free online courses.

Posted by: Jen the original at November 03, 2024 10:11 AM (K4Bq0)

154 The pumpkin diorama is a LIBRARY. I know because the figure is the Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure with patented shushing action! (Available at Archie McPhee, purveyor of fine plastic oddments).

My books have shown up in libraries without me doing anything except listing them in the main book catalogs (Baker&Taylor, Ingrams). I'm not saying a LOT of libraries have my books, but one of them is a library in Dubai so you just never know

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 03, 2024 10:12 AM (nZx7U)

155 Lucianne was the real deal back in the day - she created one of the two big conservative forums of the day. Her welp certainly was an embarrassment.
Posted by: 18-1 at November 03, 2024 10:10 AM (oZhjI)

It happens.

Posted by: Irving Kristol at November 03, 2024 10:12 AM (PiwSw)

156 It's been a week for George MacDonald fantasies. First I reread "Phantastes" then "The Princess and the Goblin". Aside from the beautiful, descriptive writing and delightful imagination, I get a bit lost in seeing the influence MacDonald had on Lewis and Tolkien. Sometimes it might be a specific reference but mostly an approach that encourages the imagination with delight and some humor. I can see that with some of Tolkien's non-LOTR pieces like Farmer Giles or the Father Christmas Letters.

I have most of MacDonald's works on Kindle. (Hey. It was inexpensive.) But I will keep looking for affordable paper editions that will stay on the shelf. I've done that with Tolkien and Lewis and am starting to do so with Chesterton.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 10:12 AM (yTvNw)

157 I'm doing the audio book of The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev. I've been binge watching Michael Tracy's You Tube channel to catch up on the ones I haven't watched. He has been going over the 1996 climb and ripping apart Krakauer's Into Thin Air narrative. It seemed like a good time to read the other books about it. The audio book means I can listen to it while I knit

Tracy has an account by Charlotte Fox, who seems to have been an interesting person. World class climber, survived the 96 climb. She died at her home, age 61, after slipping on the stairs at her home

Posted by: Notsothoreau at November 03, 2024 10:15 AM (gfViB)

158 "Is Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism worth reading?"

I'd say yes, as a brief popular history of the times the modern American Left has gotten tangled up with people we now regard as monsters. Did you know Mussolini was once regarded as one of the cool kids of world politics.

Goldberg does show his true beliefs at times, with the frequent repeating of "But today's Democrats aren't evil."

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 10:16 AM (eSLO+)

159 National Review, Weekly Standard, and I think Commentary too, all seemed to go batdreck crazy as soon as Trump was nominated -- can't recall them being anywhere near that Looney toons before then.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 10:06 AM (q3u5l)
The Neocons emphasized economics and personal freedom over religion or community. They saw the ultimate aim of society as increasing GDP. When firms began offshoring and closing factories, their answer was "learn to code." They believe in a sacred duty to maximize profit, regardless of the human cost.

I recall them doing "investigative reports" outlining how many ex-military ex-firefighters collected disability. It's a racket! Tax dollars wasted!

No, assholes, their bodies break down because of the hard work they do. This is why they rolled over on every single social issue so quickly, because they didn't care.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:16 AM (llXky)

160 Started Corstae by David Vining that I won at the MoMee. Not quite 100 pages in and, please, *please*, do another pass with an editor! The book seems to be print-on-demand and it looks like there was an attempt to correct word choices that added the new while retaining the old phrasing. It is very disruptive to the flow of reading.

At this point I also haven't found any character that I particularly like. This isn't a knock on the author because, really, the characters are just very *human* and I don't think I'm in the right mood for that.

Offsetting those criticisms, I like that he combines a standard narrative approach with epistolary sections. it gives the reader the feel of understanding various character's motivations without having an omnipotent narrator.

I also do think there's probably a good story among the editing issues and characters I don't much like. It is interesting enough that I intend to keep reading.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at November 03, 2024 10:18 AM (s9EYN)

161 Too cheap to buy books, I use the Libby app. Finding thriller and mystery and crime novels (my preferences) written by men is like finding a registered Republican teaching at almost any university.

All the heroes are women with names like Alex.

Posted by: M. Gaga at November 03, 2024 10:18 AM (RmIbl)

162 As an historian, I can’t imagine the world where Lucianne Goldberg or Jonah Goldberg are worth reading. I mean at that point you have to really be throwing down world literature on a regular basis to make time for those people.

Posted by: Quint at November 03, 2024 10:19 AM (I5Guw)

163 AH, Franco was viewed very much like Cromwell by professional historians as controversial figures that were viewed unsympathetically by historians. Pinochet or more recently Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore are similar. Not pleasing to romantics or leftists and will get indifference if not hostile attention from historians in the future.

Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 10:19 AM (ctrM5)

164 I have no interest whatsoever in turncoat, former so-called conservatives. These people are trying to create a niche that doesn’t exist; They need to be shown that they will never be a part of our group no matter what they do ever: The other thing to me is as a real conservative over 40 years. These people were always at best on the very fore extremes to the point of not being relevant at all.

Posted by: Quint at November 03, 2024 10:20 AM (I5Guw)

165 The Spanish Civil War is where the saying ‘the victors write the history’ is turned on its head.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:21 AM (D6PGr)

166 Goldberg does show his true beliefs at times, with the frequent repeating of "But today's Democrats aren't evil."
Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 10:16 AM (eSLO+)
---
The fact that you had to use a stopwatch to accurately record how fast NR went after the Covington Kids spoke volumes. How many articles did NR write about media bias and how only they stood against it? And yet they joined the baying hounds and even added new insults, like accusing them of spitting on the Cross.

That was I think the most consequential moment, their crossing the Rubicon.

The complete inability to do a thorough mea culpa showed what soulless garbage people they were.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:21 AM (llXky)

167 My kid's English/Literature class read Treasure Island. It is a classical education school and all the books are classic works. The project at the end, due last Thursday, was to make a board game based on the book. Her player pieces were little coracles and the points were coins from a treasure chest. She got an A. And she went as a pirate girl for Halloween.

Posted by: banana Dream at November 03, 2024 10:22 AM (Y6IkP)

168 That is awesome, Banana Dream!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 10:23 AM (kpS4V)

169 As an historian, I can’t imagine the world where Lucianne Goldberg or Jonah Goldberg are worth reading. I mean at that point you have to really be throwing down world literature on a regular basis to make time for those people.
Posted by: Quint at November 03, 2024 10:19 AM (I5Guw)
---
Agreed. There's a section of political books at the local used bookstore and it's a physical representation of watching taped episodes of the Firing Line from the 1990s - and about as relevant.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:24 AM (llXky)

170 Look, we know, people will bullshit you. Judge became a hard-core leftist, Eight went leftist under Eric Erickson. Little green footballs went leftist pretty much at the beginning.

That’s why I laugh that people think the Goldbergs were any part of conservatism. No, they weren’t here with books or anything else. We had Rush, we had Reagan, and Friedman. No one named Goldberg ever was a major part of the conservative world. And that was their choice, particularly with this guy who now has no one on her side. I still don’t get why people were so into the Pillsbury doughboy.

Posted by: Quint at November 03, 2024 10:25 AM (I5Guw)

171 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:16 AM (llXky)

I don’t disagree with most of what you said but Work disability / workers comp claims as a whole is a huge scam. Specifically I have first hand knowledge regard to fire fighter disability claims.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:25 AM (D6PGr)

172 It's hard for me to type. I have a giant black cat on my lap.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 10:25 AM (omVj0)

173 ugh.

Okay, here's the kicker to the Peanut the Squirrel story. Prepare to be once again disappointed in humanity.

https://tinyurl.com/2t8wcyn6

Beware, Perfesser!

Your popularity may get you extinguished.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 10:26 AM (eDfFs)

174 Another great reading (mostly listening) week.
However experienced the curse of subscription services.
Audible Plus has dropped thousands of titles the last few weeks including hundreds from Gildan Media and Tantor audio. At least there was generally a week or two notice.
I spent an unreasonable amount of time on what to read the last few weeks.
Highlights include:
American Legend (David Crockett) by Buddy Levy
Against the Tide (cold war subs & Rickover) by Dave Oliver
and 2 titles from Brian Tracy (almost anything from Brian helps motivate me).

There are still more than enough interesting titles still on the plan to keep me busy, but I have marked a dozen 'new' titles that I'll likely now use a credit on or purchase the next time a big sale.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at November 03, 2024 10:26 AM (L1omb)

175 The Spanish Civil War is where the saying ‘the victors write the history’ is turned on its head.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:21 AM (D6PGr)
---
The tide is starting to turn. Hugh Thomas was forced to revise his doorstopper of a history, though it is still biased. Stanley G. Payne has several books out, and Hooten is solid.

But against that you still have hacks like Antony Beevor muddying the waters. The nice thing about Beevor is that he goes full anti-Catholic bigot right from the start, saving you a lot of wasted time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:27 AM (llXky)

176 A cat on the lap does make it hard to type. Worse, though, is a cat that demands table space preferably on the mouse pad and even more preferably sleeping on my hand, so that I have to type one-handed. Moving the cat is, of course, out of the question.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 10:28 AM (q3u5l)

177 Fwiw, Memory is getting foggy, conflated two authors. James Burnham wrote Suicide of the West and the Managerial Revolution. Walter Dean Burnham wrote about realignment theory as UT professor of history.
Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 09:58 AM (ctrM5)

Are the two related? I think they're Scots, aren't they? I wonder if the Burnham's would come to Dunsinane?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 10:28 AM (0eaVi)

178 I mentioned above about reading "The Princess and the Goblin" and "Phantastes" and seeing how MacDonald influenced Chesterton, Tolkien and Lewis. But that leaves out the sheer delight of his writing: incredibly and powerfully descriptive and mind expanding creativity. He manages to make a story that can appeal to the innocence of children and bring that feeling back to adults.

While reading them I had a song playing in my mind: Pure Imagination from the Willy Wonka movie. (About the only good thing from that film.) The lyrics seem appropriate.

"Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Traveling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanna change the world?
There's nothing to it"

Just made a nice addition to the reading.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 10:29 AM (yTvNw)

179 Try reading with a thicc tabby on your chest.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 10:30 AM (kpS4V)

180 164 Too cheap to buy books, I use the Libby app. Finding thriller and mystery and crime novels (my preferences) written by men is like finding a registered Republican teaching at almost any university.

Posted by: M. Gaga at November 03, 2024 10:18 AM (RmIbl)

Have you read the Orphan X series, by Gregg Hurwitz? They're pretty manly. Lots of good vs. evil, fighting, pain, overcoming, making the right decision even when it's hard to, etc. I get them on Libby and on Hoopla.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 10:30 AM (OX9vb)

181 OrangeEnt at 181 --

How could you?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 10:30 AM (q3u5l)

182 Perfessor, I too am eagerly waiting for the next installment of Son of the Black Sword. I don't connect with a lot of fantasy, because so often things tend to move along so slowly, not much happening. Correia's books never move along slowly, something interesting is always happening, so he's the perfect person to write fantasy I'd enjoy. My plan is the same as yours: re-read the first four before devouring the new one. I am bracing for a really enticing cliffhanger at the end of the book. It's happened before in this series.

I am also reading Marko Kloos for the first time, years after downloading and ignoring the sample of Terms of Enlistment. Now I'm three books into the series, and finding it interesting and engrossing.

Posted by: Splunge at November 03, 2024 10:31 AM (hmKaK)

183 Trump is no conservative either though he has now chosen to follow many conservative ideals that he had rejected previously not so long ago.

I am grateful of these changes and the Left’s immediate condemnation of Trump that made him dig in to those ideals.

Bottom line he is 1000x the better choice.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:31 AM (D6PGr)

184 I don’t disagree with most of what you said but Work disability / workers comp claims as a whole is a huge scam. Specifically I have first hand knowledge regard to fire fighter disability claims.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:25 AM (D6PGr)
---
All human institutions are prone to corruption. My point is that these people are detached from the experience of common people, know nothing about them and want to keep knowing nothing about them. They think their ignorance shows how sophisticated they are, like an aristocrat who never has to dial a phone because a servant aways does it.

But that only shows how ignorant they are. Aristocrats love to tinker, to dig into stuff and they give a damn what anyone thinks about it because they're aristocrats. Evelyn Waugh remarked on this decades ago, how new money people sniffed at the farmers on their newly-bought estates while the actual aristocrats loved talking to them, personally touching the soil, examining the animals, etc.

Waugh would know - his wife Laura of the Herbert family raised cows and was quite good at it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:32 AM (llXky)

185 This is a little late for Halloween, but go check out a podcast on Youtube called Classic Ghost Stories. The host, Tony Walker, reads mainly 19th and early 20th century ghost stories, then gives commentary at the end. Lots of M.R. James, Edith Wharton, and even some Lovecraft. Oddly, I've found it's soothing to fall asleep to! https://www.youtube.com/@ClassicGhost

Posted by: Linnet at November 03, 2024 10:33 AM (J8QYe)

186 Good morning all.
Just stopping by to say I have started several books and every time, read a bit and then go back to X to see what is happening in the real world.
I did manage to read an entire Spenser, title: Chance which takes place mostly in Las Vegas. I think it is no. 24 or 25? Don;t know how I got hooked but they are quick reads and it feels like I know the characters. I can see why they made it into a TV series.
Two sequels to skip:
Heather Graham: Legacy in Blood. Boring and predictable
Brynne Weaver :Leather and Lark. Promise of book 1 gone.

Posted by: sharon(willow's apprentice) at November 03, 2024 10:34 AM (t/2Uw)

187 >>> 172 That is awesome, Banana Dream!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 10:23 AM (kpS4V)

Thanks, it was pretty awesome. All because my better half, english/drama teacher wife, helped and motivated her through it. I handle all the math and some science.

Posted by: banana Dream at November 03, 2024 10:34 AM (Y6IkP)

188 There's only seven stories, you know.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024

***
There are only seven notes (do, re, mi, etc.) in the Western music scale, and yet look at the enormous variety of music that has appeared in the last few centuries alone.

These newer writers can do better than they are doing.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 10:05 AM (omVj0)

There are plenty out there. Frankly, I blame the 28 year old female publishing gatekeepers.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 10:35 AM (0eaVi)

189 I still don’t get why people were so into the Pillsbury doughboy.
Posted by: Quint at November 03, 2024 10:25 AM (I5Guw)
---
His gig was to be the hip voice of young, iconoclastic conservatives who watched The Simpsons and Star Trek. It wore out rather quickly, and so he had to create a new identity as an intellectual - without any actual intellectual accomplishments. I mean he's got a B.A. from Goucher, but he holds the Assness Chair. How neat.

His schtick was old even before Trump, but that's when he became objectively useless.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:35 AM (llXky)

190 I5Guw)

166 AH, Franco was viewed very much like Cromwell by professional historians as controversial figures that were viewed unsympathetically by historians. Pinochet or more recently Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore are similar. Not pleasing to romantics or leftists and will get indifference if not hostile attention from historians in the future.
Posted by: whig's phone at November 03, 2024 10:19 AM (ctrM5)

And yet each of those individuals easily rank among the most important leaders in the histories of their various nations .

Posted by: Tom Servo at November 03, 2024 10:35 AM (S6gqv)

191 171 ... "My kid's English/Literature class read Treasure Island. It is a classical education school and all the books are classic works. The project at the end, due last Thursday, was to make a board game based on the book. Her player pieces were little coracles and the points were coins from a treasure chest. She got an A. And she went as a pirate girl for Halloween."

I absolutely love this story and congrats to your daughter for her well deserved A. Treasure Island with the Wyeth illustrations was my first 'adult' book, before Hardy Boys or Heinlein juveniles. It set a love of story and words that had remained throughout my life.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 10:36 AM (yTvNw)

192 Time to get ready for Mass, but before I go, I want to say that while I haven't been reading much last week, I am re-watching the superb Brideshead Revisited adaptation with Jeremy Irons.

Do yourself a favor and watch it. Let it unfold in all its languid glory. For those of a religious bent, note well the subtle discussions of it, and how Charles Ryder comes to understand the meaning of faith.

Yes, as a period piece drama it can stand on its ow as a harrowing portrait of family breakdown, but if you go deeper, you find something deeply profound with one of the best casts ever assembled. It's a great introduction to Waugh.

Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:38 AM (llXky)

193 vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion, sorry I came on a little strong with my opinions last week. I don't know what came over me.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 03, 2024 10:38 AM (iZEhM)

194 His schtick was old even before Trump, but that's when he became objectively useless.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 03, 2024 10:35 AM (llXky)

I always pointed out at the height of his popularity that all of his editorial writings criticizing the Dems contained moral equivalence with the Republicans.

Without fail , whether true or not he had to write something to the effect of ‘ to be fair Republicans do this too….’

He was always a Leftist cuck .

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 10:40 AM (D6PGr)

195 Good morning Book Horde

Does anyone know of an easy to read historical version of Count Dracula?

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at November 03, 2024 10:42 AM (PcTds)

196 My books have shown up in libraries without me doing anything except listing them in the main book catalogs (Baker&Taylor, Ingrams). I'm not saying a LOT of libraries have my books, but one of them is a library in Dubai so you just never know
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at November 03, 2024 10:12 AM (nZx7U)

Great, but that substack article in my first comment today could help even more. Why not try that, too?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 10:42 AM (0eaVi)

197 Well, my overwrought manner of speaking has rubbed off on my toddler. She was trying to get her bow out and got it tangled in her hair. She walked up and said "My bow is stuck! G-d help us!"

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:45 AM (7oYYI)

198
I read Paul Preston's bio of Franco. Even though Preston is thoroughly hostile to FF, what still comes through is that in World War II Franco played his cards very, very well.

The Spanish Republic was finished even before the Civil War. The choice wasn't between a democracy and fascism, it was between a strongman and commies.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 03, 2024 10:46 AM (EsZUh)

199 Perfessor, Thanks for that video about the 30 year reading list. I probably don't have 30 years left to read but can appreciate the way he came up with his list based on Dore's suggestions. It would be a good starting point.

Posted by: JTB at November 03, 2024 10:48 AM (yTvNw)

200 I now have all seven volumes of Sir Charles Oman's "History of the Peninsular War" sitting in the bookcase. I've read it before on Kindle, but the subject deserves big hardback books sitting on a shelf.

Written before WW I, the prose is surprisingly lively for a history of the Napoleonic wars as fought in Spain and Portugal.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 10:48 AM (eSLO+)

201 Regarding histories of Dracula, Radu Florescu has made a career of writing books about the historical Vlad the Impaler and vampire folklore of Romania. He's probably the best place to start.

Warning: it's all actually kind of disappointing. Vlad Tepes wasn't really a vampire.

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 10:49 AM (78a2H)

202 "My bow is stuck! G-d help us!"
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:45 AM (7oYYI)

I love that!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump! at November 03, 2024 10:49 AM (OX9vb)

203 OrangeEnt at 181 --

How could you?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 10:30 AM (q3u5l)

Just having a little fun.

(shakes beer and pops the top)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 10:55 AM (0eaVi)

204 I was looking through an old blog list.
There was over a dozen of sites I'd visit daily.
Polipundit, NR, LGF, Ace, Ankle Biting Pundits, RedState, The Other McCain, Drudge, Insty, Gateway Pundit, Malkin, Powerline, Andrew Sullivan, etc.

And now it's Ace, Insty and GP.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at November 03, 2024 10:56 AM (xkwZj)

205 I just flew in from Iceland, and boy, is my liver tired.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 10:57 AM (DDGz9)

206 The Folio Society has just released their printing of " Children of Dune".

This Christmas season has become a Conspiracy of Evil against my wallet.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:00 AM (eDfFs)

207 Warning: it's all actually kind of disappointing. Vlad Tepes wasn't really a vampire.
Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 10:49 AM (78a2H)

Who knows. An actual monster being a monster is a Dog Bites Man story, at its core, even if fanciful. But a regular human mammal dude who was so proficient at offing people and making a spectacle of it that they had to invent a monster for him to be is its own special kind of terrifying.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:01 AM (DDGz9)

208 Salvador Dali is probably the best and most talented technical artist out of all the surrealists and other peers of his day . Far more talented than Picasso.

And he is also criticized and downplayed by the self proclaimed art world critics and purveyors of what’s good or not.

The only reason for this is because he professed his support for Franco and the Catholic Church. Whether he did it as part of his schitck or not is arguable but doesn’t seem to be.

And of course the over rated Picasso was a declared communist supporter.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at November 03, 2024 11:02 AM (D6PGr)

209 I read Caesar's Civil War by Adrian Goldsworthy. This fairly short book is at its best coherently explaining why Caesar and his former friend and ally decided to go to war destroying the Republic. Many books just state that the convolutions of the time are simply too complex to untangle. It seems Caesar's enemies were attempting to prosecute him rather than to allow him to stand for election for counsel. An interesting what if? is to ask what might have happened if Caesar's daughter, Julia, Pompey's wife, had not died in childbirth and the father-in-law /son-in-law relationship maintained. (Although Pompey was several years older than Caesar, Caesar was the father-in-law. Further, although the marriage was at least in part political, it was a happy marriage.)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:02 AM (L/fGl)

210 Any chair that guy sits in is an assness chair, until some poor soul reupholsters the damn thing.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:04 AM (DDGz9)

211 Well, my overwrought manner of speaking has rubbed off on my toddler. She was trying to get her bow out and got it tangled in her hair. She walked up and said "My bow is stuck! G-d help us!"
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at November 03, 2024 10:45 AM (7oYYI)

That’s adorable!

Posted by: Disinterested FDA Executive and Pfizer Board Member at November 03, 2024 11:04 AM (FC8SQ)

212 Kinda worried that my joking swears of "By Crom!" And "Cthulhu take the wheel!" might have unintended theological consequences for me.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 11:04 AM (kpS4V)

213 Morning all.
I''ve polished off three WW2 aircraft books this week still on my mission for the first.
This first being what fighter aircraft was the first to get guns mounted IN the wings.
I may have a pretty good candidate (the Arado Ar 196a3?) but I've got 3 more books to get through.

Posted by: Reforger at November 03, 2024 11:05 AM (xcIvR)

214 "My bow is stuck! G-d help us!"

I think ~~you~~ she just wrote CBD's FWP post.

Posted by: Oddbob at November 03, 2024 11:05 AM (/y8xj)

215 See, that's the thing: Vlad wasn't called a vampire by any of his contemporaries. They may have called him a more-bloodthirsty-than-average warlord on the edge of Christendom, but that was a position where being seen as a scary badass was definitely an advantage.

Bram Stoker, writing four hundred years later, needed a name for his vampire. He used "Count Vampyr" in the first draft but apparently decided that was a little on-the-nose, so he picked the name of a historical figure from Transylvania, which sounded a little scary and demonic to Anglophones.

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 11:06 AM (78a2H)

216 Have you read the Orphan X series, by Gregg Hurwitz? They're pretty manly. Lots of good vs. evil, fighting, pain, overcoming, making the right decision even when it's hard to, etc. I get them on Libby and on Hoopla.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! Catz for Trump!

I second this suggestion. Been reading the Orphan X series since Hurwitz started writing them. Currently got the next novel on pre order. Highly. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Tuna at November 03, 2024 11:07 AM (oaGWv)

217 Bram Stoker, writing four hundred years later, needed a name for his vampire. He used "Count Vampyr" in the first draft but apparently decided that was a little on-the-nose, so he picked the name of a historical figure from Transylvania, which sounded a little scary and demonic to Anglophones.
Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 11:06 AM (78a2H)

Awwww. Well i guess that is kind of disappointing.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:07 AM (DDGz9)

218 There was over a dozen of sites I'd visit daily.
Polipundit, NR, LGF, Ace, Ankle Biting Pundits, RedState, The Other McCain, Drudge, Insty, Gateway Pundit, Malkin, Powerline, Andrew Sullivan, etc.

And now it's Ace, Insty and GP.
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at November 03, 2024 10:56 AM (xkwZj)

Why did you drop the Other McCain?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 11:08 AM (0eaVi)

219 That's hilarious, YD!

One huge plus to having kids is their great entertainment value.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:09 AM (eDfFs)

220 Well, I have to sign off now and take down the stakes in the yard.

Posted by: Trimegistus at November 03, 2024 11:09 AM (78a2H)

221 I've got a small pile of Goldsworthy books queued up just waiting to be read. One day.

.... one day.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:10 AM (DDGz9)

222 Warning: it's all actually kind of disappointing. Vlad Tepes wasn't really a vampire.
Posted by: Trimegistus

I saw a fascinating PBS show on the excavation of a Polish graveyard for vampires. Various methods had been used to insure they remained in their graves including decapitation, placing a padlock on the left big toe, and burying a sickle over the vampire's neck such that she could not rise without decapitating herself. And this happened in the not too terribly long ago 17th century. They also recreated the features of an 18 year old vampire and she was hot.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:11 AM (L/fGl)

223 And yet each of those individuals easily rank among the most important leaders in the histories of their various nations .
Posted by: Tom Servo
=======
Since about the 1960's and 1970's, history (and publishing) became hijacked by the left resulting in fewer and fewer historians being published on the right or even getting the necessary credentials and professorships in academia.

So, that gives room for charlatans like Goldberg to take their place as paid nonces for various billionaires or non profit foundations.

Being on my phone earlier, I was unable to fully enunciate my criticisms of Goldberg's lifting James Burnham's Suicide of the West as a literal rewrite of the original.

The old saying of Liberal Fascism is that which is original is not good and that which is good in it is not original.

Almost always, original sources trump derivations of them. You see the same dynamic in movies--remakes or sequels rarely are as good as the original. Very rarely is the number of times that the sequel or the remake is better.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:11 AM (ctrM5)

224 Trimegistus the Impaler!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 11:12 AM (kpS4V)

225 So the title for my current novel about the Biden administration, "President Pantsshitter"

is too on the nose.

Huh.

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:12 AM (eDfFs)

226 216 Kinda worried that my joking swears of "By Crom!" And "Cthulhu take the wheel!" might have unintended theological consequences for me.
Posted by: All Hail Eris
========
Well, the good news is that the Elder Gods view you as less than a bug. Of course, annoying bugs get squashed.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:13 AM (ctrM5)

227 A long time ago, I read something along the lines of "What if a Transylvanian had written an international best seller about Ben Franklin stitching together corpses and bringing them to life with lightning? Would we now have tourists in Philadelphia roaming about, looking for Franklin's lab?"

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 11:14 AM (eSLO+)

228 228 Trimegistus the Impaler!
Posted by: All Hail Eris
========
Scarier still is
Trimegistus the Rectifier!!!

Of All Errors.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:14 AM (ctrM5)

229 231 I’ll admit as a 20-something I was drawn to Jonah Goldberg because he was the cool conservative online. The Simpsons references and things like that did resonate.

What can I say we all do dumb shit when we’re young.
Posted by: Hi Lo
=======
Paths to true wisdom often begin with a crooked start.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:16 AM (ctrM5)

230
Since about the 1960's and 1970's, history (and publishing) became hijacked by the left resulting in fewer and fewer historians being published on the right or even getting the necessary credentials and professorships in academia.

__________

Read any political biography or history. Republicans are always treated as some species of microencephalic subhumans, their ideas routinely traduced or dismissed. Only rarely will the underlying principle be identified.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 03, 2024 11:18 AM (EsZUh)

231 Why did you drop the Other McCain?
---
Time, more than anything; just not enough time to read as much as I'd like

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at November 03, 2024 11:18 AM (xkwZj)

232 Rantburg was on my early blogroll.

Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 11:20 AM (QB+5g)

233 222 There was over a dozen of sites I'd visit daily.
Polipundit, NR, LGF, Ace, Ankle Biting Pundits, RedState, The Other McCain, Drudge, Insty, Gateway Pundit, Malkin, Powerline, Andrew Sullivan, etc.

And now it's Ace, Insty and GP.
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice
------
I remember most of those but never a fan of LGF's chief goober and his acolytes.

I remember Polipundit got tremendous pushback because the main guy there (forget his name) began calling Bush as Jorge Arbusto for his ridiculous amnesty proposals and misgovernance in his second term.

Ace at the time had pretty terrifying flame wars between commenters (EOJ--(Empire of Jeff) was one of the all time best at flaming people that I have seen even on Usenet) plus was NFSW much of the time.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:20 AM (ctrM5)

234 28
'Carr tells how the Marines were given a peacekeeping mission when the opposite is their strong suit'

Yeah. That wasn't the Reagan Administration's finest hour. He didn't understand the terrorists' capabilities or mindset.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at November 03, 2024 11:21 AM (3wi/L)

235 In the early days of Internet, it was still a bit naughty to be professionally against Default Politics. Outside of Rush on the radio, there really weren't many voices willing or allowed to exist saying "yes, you're actually right, everything the professional newsfaces are telling you really is bullshit, and here's why". So anyone staking a claim in that niche automatically got a ton of credit and goodwill from all the people waking up from that default, plastic, unquestioned newsface worldview.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:21 AM (DDGz9)

236 Worth reading, and scary as hell: "Demonic: How the liberal mob is endangering America," by Ann Coulter (I know, I know, but bear with me...).

Published in 2011, she traces leftisms Roots back to the French Revolution, leaning heavily on the account of Gustav le Bon of the atrocities of that whole affair. And she does a pretty good job of anatomizing the mob psychology involved in both cases.

Worth reading for that account of the French Revolution alone, and it also goes into the rise of Obama and crackpot conspiracy theories, the violence of the left, and the roots of the totalitarian instinct.

As is her habit, she writes fast and loose, but there's a lot of good stuff in there, copiously footnoted. I met her at a Republican meeting in New York and she signed a copy for me and commented that that was "one of her oldies."

I know she is a professional gadfly, but she has some good stuff in this one.

Posted by: Beverly at November 03, 2024 11:23 AM (Epeb0)

237 Would we now have tourists in Philadelphia roaming about, looking for Franklin's lab?"
Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 11:14 AM (eSLO+)

... i demand an immediate empirical attack on the solution to that conjecture.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:24 AM (DDGz9)

238 Read any political biography or history. Republicans are always treated as some species of microencephalic subhumans, their ideas routinely traduced or dismissed. Only rarely will the underlying principle be identified.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh
=======
Problem goes beyond US. Margaret Thatcher, for example. Fortunately for us, she wrote a lot about her career in politics herself and also guidance for future citizens and pols. Thatcher's two autobiographies are well worth reading and demonstrate problems of the modern state.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:24 AM (ctrM5)

239 "Newsface" -- I love it!

Like a Dick Tracy villain or demon from Hellraiser.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 11:25 AM (kpS4V)

240 lol, Batman v Newsface...

Posted by: runner at November 03, 2024 11:26 AM (V13WU)

241
"Beer and boobs goooood!"

- Franklin's Monster

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:26 AM (eDfFs)

242 240 In the early days of Internet, it was still a bit naughty to be professionally against Default Politics. Outside of Rush on the radio, there really weren't many voices willing or allowed to exist saying "yes, you're actually right, everything the professional newsfaces are telling you really is bullshit, and here's why". So anyone staking a claim in that niche automatically got a ton of credit and goodwill from all the people waking up from that default, plastic, unquestioned newsface worldview.
Posted by: Warai-otoko
-------
Even before that--Enoch Powell is an an example with his Rivers of Blood speech. I think I remember that he knew he would be ostracized for it before making the speech but felt it necessary to warn society about it anyway.

Again, someone very worthy of a biography.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:27 AM (ctrM5)

243 54
'Does Gilbert take the line that Churchill's switch to the Liberals was partly a way of getting revenge on the Tory leadership for how it treated his late father?'

I hate to say it but I think it was opportunism. Churchill could see the Liberals were on the ascendancy and hitched his wagon.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at November 03, 2024 11:27 AM (3wi/L)

244 I remember USS Clueless. DenBest got me started reading blogs. I hold that guy in my highest regards.

Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 11:27 AM (QB+5g)

245 I know she is a professional gadfly, but she has some good stuff in this one.
Posted by: Beverly at November 03, 2024 11:23 AM (Epeb0)

My gut feeling is that it's a bit of a post-hoc tautology.

They look like other evil movements because evil looks like evil. Correlation is not causality, or something.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:28 AM (DDGz9)

246 I know she is a professional gadfly, but she has some good stuff in this one.
Posted by: Beverly
--------
Regarding the French Revolution, I recommend Burke or Carlyle.

For a sobering account of the Revolution and a critical view of its aftermath. Mercy Otis Warren.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (ctrM5)

247 252 Hotair was fun until Trump came along and melted minds there.
Posted by: Hi Lo at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (MU5OA)
Word.

Posted by: Eromero at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (DXbAa)

248 So the title for my current novel about the Biden administration, "President Pantsshitter"

-
Didja see this link? Joe misses his car and wanders in the wilderness.

https://is.gd/VNhHkB

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (L/fGl)

249 Trump is like the Ark of the Covenant.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 11:30 AM (kpS4V)

250 252 Hotair was fun until Trump came along and melted minds there.
Posted by: Hi Lo

I would trace it more to Malkin selling it and Salem promptly ruining it. Same dynamic with Red State.

Corporatism and worship of the dollar uber alles has a great deal to blame for the ruin of GOP's brand.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:31 AM (ctrM5)

251 Regarding histories of Dracula, Radu Florescu has made a career of writing books about the historical Vlad the Impaler and vampire folklore of Romania. He's probably the best place to start.

Thanks Trimegistus

I see he has several books. Is there a particular one you would recommend?

Posted by: AmericanKestrel at November 03, 2024 11:31 AM (PcTds)

252 "Didja see this link? Joe misses his car and wanders in the wilderness."

He's making a break for it!!!

Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 11:31 AM (QB+5g)

253 If I had a 30 bucket list for reading one had better be How To Escape From A Casket.

Posted by: Diogenes at November 03, 2024 11:32 AM (W/lyH)

254 Trump is like the Ark of the Covenant.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024

***
Nazis are going to cart him to an uncharted island and take off his tie, only to have their faces melted?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 03, 2024 11:32 AM (omVj0)

255 250 I remember USS Clueless. DenBest got me started reading blogs. I hold that guy in my highest regards.
Posted by: pawn at November 03, 2024 11:27 AM (QB+5g)

Seconded. That was one of those early blogs that made me dive into the archives of the blog.... Alas, it's been a while since I've thought about him...

Posted by: Castle Guy at November 03, 2024 11:32 AM (Lhaco)

256 "Demonic: How the liberal mob is endangering America," by Ann Coulter

-
Her book on Mccarthy, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, is also very good.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:34 AM (L/fGl)

257 A commenter last week (don't remember who -- sorry) listed several of Evelyn Waugh's titles as being the best places to start on his work. Jerko here didn't get that copied for future reference. Anyone remember which titles were recommended?

Any info appreciated. Thanks.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 11:34 AM (q3u5l)

258 I hate to say it but I think it was opportunism. Churchill could see the Liberals were on the ascendancy and hitched his wagon.
Posted by: Dr. Claw

Shouldn't hate to say it. Churchill was an opportunist but to be fair, he was to the left of many Tories anyway on social issues. Tories back then had their own problems with antediluvian mossbacks and reformers like Disraeli.

Churchill's pithy comment about the traditions of the Admiralty being 'rum, sodomy, and the lash' is par for the course as a younger man.

Posted by: whig at November 03, 2024 11:34 AM (ctrM5)

259 AHE, you mean Trump unbutton his suit jacket and angels of death fly out?

I already voted for him. You don't have to convince me!

Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:35 AM (eDfFs)

260 Nazis are going to cart him to an uncharted island and take off his tie, only to have their faces melted?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

Pelosi's face has already melted.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:36 AM (L/fGl)

261 I've never read her stuff, but I've always had a bit of a gut vibe that Coulter was one who actually put in the legwork, did her own research, and actually wrote her own words instead of dumping a bullet point outline on some hump's inbox for them to do it all for her.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:36 AM (DDGz9)

262 I've never paid much attention to whether the author was male or female, and I have favorites with both. But now that you mention it, I am realizing that more and more women authors are falling into the same pattern. Any strong, independent, self-thinking man is frequently the antagonist.

Posted by: Diogenes at November 03, 2024 11:37 AM (W/lyH)

263 AHE, you mean Trump unbutton his suit jacket and angels of death fly out?

I already voted for him. You don't have to convince me!
Posted by: naturalfake at November 03, 2024 11:35 AM (eDfFs)

Donald Trump. The first Metal President.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:37 AM (DDGz9)

264 Melting faces. Exploding heads. The remains being sucked up into a roiling sky.

I'd consider getting back on cable if I knew that would be broadcast live on election night...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 11:38 AM (q3u5l)

265 There was over a dozen of sites I'd visit daily.
Polipundit, NR, LGF, Ace, Ankle Biting Pundits, RedState, The Other McCain, Drudge, Insty, Gateway Pundit, Malkin, Powerline, Andrew Sullivan, etc.

And now it's Ace, Insty and GP.
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice

How many banned you?

Posted by: BignJames at November 03, 2024 11:40 AM (Yj6Os)

266 The number of peri-menopausal American white women watching the Sex And The City movie on their personal screens during my flight back from Europe was eerily distressing to me... I'm seriously shook.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:41 AM (DDGz9)

267 re the French Revolution...Hilary Mantel's novel "A Place of Greater Safety" is very good.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at November 03, 2024 11:42 AM (Te7DI)

268 Comic book? Matchbook? Checkbook? Sketchbook? Scrapbook? Flipbook? Bookend? Book worm? Bookmark? Bookkeeping? Booking a flight? Logbook? Bookoo?

"Book and book! What is book?" -Kara of Sigma Draconis 6

https://youtu.be/Rrv7YD-sDcg

Posted by: mindful webworker - turning the page at November 03, 2024 11:42 AM (qY0mJ)

269 Hotair was fun until Trump came along and melted minds there.
Posted by: Hi Lo at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (MU5OA)

Correction. Hot Air was fun until Michelle left.

Oh... that cheerleader skit...........

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 11:42 AM (0eaVi)

270 I played the original '79 Mad Max on my own screen as a form of personal silent protest.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:43 AM (DDGz9)

271 Welcome to the party pal.
Posted by: Every movie and TV show today at November 03, 2024 11:39 AM (MU5OA)

Yeah. I know.
One reason I watch a lot of BritBox. At least there its the "Americans" who are the bad guys.

Posted by: Diogenes at November 03, 2024 11:43 AM (W/lyH)

272 I am reading "The Keys of This Blood" by Malachi Martin. It's about JPII and the New World Order. Written in the late 80's and published in 1990, he did not foresee the collapse of Soviet Communism.

The Chapters he has devoted to Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Gorbachev are very interesting.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at November 03, 2024 11:44 AM (+H2BX)

273 >>> 197 vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion, sorry I came on a little strong with my opinions last week. I don't know what came over me.
Posted by: Cybersmythe at November 03, 2024 10:38 AM (iZEhM)

I am not vmom, but I didn't take your comments as harsh. And fwiw your preference to avoid any horror elements means not reading this series is a good decision, because I was thinking of just the fight at the end of the first book and - uh, yeah, no thanks.

(... that is what you were talking about I hope ... ;P )

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 03, 2024 11:44 AM (0s6uJ)

274 Donald Trump. The first Metal President.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:37 AM (DDGz9)

There is definitely a concept album worth of stories in the DJT adventure.

Posted by: Reforger at November 03, 2024 11:46 AM (xcIvR)

275 There is definitely a concept album worth of stories in the DJT adventure.
Posted by: Reforger at November 03, 2024 11:46 AM (xcIvR)

What is "Ear of Vengeance" in Latin?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:46 AM (DDGz9)

276 226 My mom watched that special about the Polish "vampires" and was intrigued. The artist / scientist who does the reconstructions of the dead does amazing work. His website is https://www.odnilsson.com/

Posted by: callsign claymore at November 03, 2024 11:47 AM (JcnCJ)

277 Almost noon. I really should put on pants and get moving.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Agent of Chaos at November 03, 2024 11:47 AM (kpS4V)

278 179 167

Paul Johnson gave Franco a fair write up in Modern Times. It changed my opinion of him. Basically, he says Franco was as ruthless as his enemies (the Communists) forced him to be. After they were stomped, Franco had no more goals that he pursued through violence.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at November 03, 2024 11:49 AM (3wi/L)

279 re the French Revolution...Hilary Mantel's novel "A Place of Greater Safety" is very good.
Posted by: occam's brassiere

Although a little Twilight Zoney, Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly is very good particularly for younger girls although I, a grown ass male, also liked it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:50 AM (L/fGl)

280 Didja see this link? Joe misses his car and wanders in the wilderness.

https://is.gd/VNhHkB
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (L/fGl)

Did the tower clear him for takeoff?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at November 03, 2024 11:50 AM (+8Ln3)

281 Another Sunday morning well spent. Off to maybe do something constructive. Maybe. But I kinda doubt it.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at November 03, 2024 11:51 AM (q3u5l)

282 I have over 400 books on my Kindle that I still have to read and I'm pucking up more every month. And of course I have many series that I'm plodding along reading each new book as it comes out.

I'm 61. No way I'm finishing them all before I die at 127.

Posted by: Sharkman at November 03, 2024 11:51 AM (FZ46u)

283 >>> 285 Almost noon. I really should put on pants and get moving.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Agent of Chaos at November 03, 2024 11:47 AM (kpS4V)

I see *somebody* forgot to change her clocks.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 03, 2024 11:51 AM (0s6uJ)

284 >>> 291 >>> 285 Almost noon. I really should put on pants and get moving.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Agent of Chaos at November 03, 2024 11:47 AM (kpS4V)

I see *somebody* forgot to change her clocks.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 03, 2024 11:51 AM (0s6uJ)

Or not. MEEEchegan is on ET?!

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 03, 2024 11:53 AM (0s6uJ)

285 I'm 61. No way I'm finishing them all before I die at 127.
Posted by: Sharkman at November 03, 2024 11:51 AM (FZ46u)

"May you never finish your reading list"

Sounds like a curse, but it's really a blessing, isn't it?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:54 AM (DDGz9)

286 Re the Jacobins. The teachers and professors who push the talking point that the American Revolution and the French Revolution are similar are either dupes or villains. There's no excuse to say such stupid things with so much data readily available.

The Jacobins mocked the sacraments with "Republican marriage" and "Republican baptism" murders. The Vendee genocide still doesn't get enough coverage.

Posted by: callsign claymore at November 03, 2024 11:54 AM (JcnCJ)

287 https://is.gd/VNhHkB
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at November 03, 2024 11:29 AM (L/fGl)

Heh. You can just see how Over It his security is. "Oh, we're just gonna taxi to runway 28R and wait for clearance now? Arrighty, then. Whatever."

Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:59 AM (DDGz9)

288 >>> 283 There is definitely a concept album worth of stories in the DJT adventure.
Posted by: Reforger at November 03, 2024 11:46 AM (xcIvR)

What is "Ear of Vengeance" in Latin?
Posted by: Warai-otoko at November 03, 2024 11:46 AM (DDGz9)

auriculae vindictae

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at November 03, 2024 11:59 AM (0s6uJ)

289 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at November 03, 2024 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

290 Nood. For realises.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at November 03, 2024 12:02 PM (eSLO+)

291 Try reading with a thicc tabby on your chest.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Candy Bomber at November 03, 2024 10:30 AM (kpS4V)

Sounds like you need to teach tabby to read aloud to you.

Posted by: Hour of the Wolf at November 03, 2024 12:04 PM (VNX3d)

292 Sounds like a curse, but it's really a blessing, isn't it?

Posted by: Warai-otoko

It is. I love that saying.

Posted by: Sharkman at November 03, 2024 12:08 PM (FZ46u)

293 "My bow is stuck! G-d help us!"

Dammit, you guys.

LONG, or CROSS?

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at November 03, 2024 12:09 PM (zdLoL)

294 The Spanish Republic was finished even before the Civil War. The choice wasn't between a democracy and fascism, it was between a strongman and commies.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at November 03, 2024 10:46 AM (EsZUh)

One of the most ignored periods of Spain is the "generation of 98" period: Literary analysis is rife of course, Lorca is one of the voices coming out it and Picasso is also deeply influenced by it. The literary and artistic side was the reaction to Spain losing the last pretense at an empire by losing the SpanAm war, but politically it was a massive collapse of confidence. Though Spain focused on Northern Spain, the last gasps was to bind down harder even though the failure of the empire was proof that all the sacrifices of blood, money and liberty to support the glory of Spain was spoiled, and the only thing to show for it was an entrenched bureaucracy and broken promises/

When I studied this as a kid it meant nothing to me, now it seems to loom larger and larger.

Posted by: Kindltot at November 03, 2024 12:09 PM (D7oie)

295 Saddest time of Sunday morning again. The end of the Book Thread. Thanks, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at November 03, 2024 12:12 PM (0eaVi)

296 "Northern Africa" rather.

Posted by: Kindltot at November 03, 2024 12:26 PM (D7oie)

297 197 vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion, sorry I came on a little strong with my opinions last week. I don't know what came over me.
Posted by: Cybersmythe

Sorry I missed this- I had to run off to Church.

Anyway, absolutely no offense. I thought you had a great point about Son of the Black Sword having a lot of horror elements. I prefer supernatural type fantasy so I get inured to it. But it's absolutely a preference thing, and I understand some readers not liking horror elements,

I enjoy reading the horde's unvarnished reviews of books, and movies, so please don't worry about that.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at November 03, 2024 12:41 PM (GhIJO)

298 @79/who knew: "What's a NOOD?"

As Art Rondelet at comment #92 said, it's a new thread. It's an acronym: "New Object Of Desire". Just got home or I would have replied sooner.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at November 03, 2024 12:48 PM (O7YUW)

299 I used to be a huge fan of Larry Correia and his books (I had them all), until he lost his mind and began blocking anyone who disagreed with his primary pick, but only after he'd re-used the leftists' insults/talking points against them. Like a coward, he didn't want any rebuttal to his insults of course.
Afterwards, I promptly donated my whole collection to the local library.
My advice is to read Jim Butcher, he's a way better author anyway.

Posted by: VAR1ABLE at November 03, 2024 02:14 PM (YYdey)

300 Book 6 of Forgotten Warrior will be out in February. So not that long of a wait

Posted by: Doug at November 03, 2024 02:52 PM (CfLd+)

301 Thanks for all the comments about Liberal Fascism. I'll give it a listen, but won't feel bad if I decide to quit it halfway through.

Audiobooks have been great in helping me make a dent in my TBR pile. I'm in my car a lot, and I can get through one or two books a year. Already this year I've listened to 60 books that I physically own, but never had time to read.

My most recent audiobook was The Candy Bombers, by Andrei Czerny, about the Berlin Airlift. I recall reading a paragraph or two in history class about the blockade and airlift. This book adds a lot more detail about the Cold War, the blockade, America's determination to finally draw a line in the sand to end Stalin's aggression, and the American response once the plight of the Beeliners was humanized by the candy drops.

Posted by: Biancaneve at November 03, 2024 04:15 PM (12ypN)

302 "READING LIST FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS"

I'm almost 80 years old. I don't think I need a 30-year reading list. Maybe a 3-month reading list would be more practical.

Posted by: Ralph at November 03, 2024 04:27 PM (TysyT)

303 Lots of free public domain books at -

https://standardebooks.org/

Posted by: 13times at November 03, 2024 04:39 PM (jnrX7)

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